[erlang-questions] Strings as Lists

[Taj Khattra]

>  Perhaps if we
>  say that a literal string begins with n+2 quotation marks and a
>  single character
>  that is not a letter, digit, space, or tab, and then ends with
>  another copy of
>  that single character followed by n+2 quotation marks.

here's an excerpt from http://www.lua.org/manual/5.1/manual.html#2.1
specifying how literal strings can be defined in Lua:

Literal strings can also be defined using a long format enclosed by
long brackets. We define an opening long bracket of level n as an
opening square bracket followed by n equal signs followed by another
opening square bracket. So, an opening long bracket of level 0 is
written as [[, an opening long bracket of level 1 is written as [=[,
and so on. A closing long bracket is defined similarly; for instance,
a closing long bracket of level 4 is written as ]====]. A long string
starts with an opening long bracket of any level and ends at the first
closing long bracket of the same level. Literals in this bracketed
form may run for several lines, do not interpret any escape sequences,
and ignore long brackets of any other level. They may contain anything
except a closing bracket of the proper level.