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From: Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2011 13:52:31 -0700
Subject: Re: Py-dea: Streamline string literals now!
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On Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 12:36 PM, Rick Johnson
<rantingrickjohnson@gmail.com> wrote:
> My point was... while Greg's idea is nice, it is not the answer.
> HOWEVER, he did find the perfect char, and that char is the pipe! -->
> |
>
> mlstr = |||
> this is a
> multi line sting that is
> delimited by "triple pipes". Or we
> could just 'single pipes' if we like, however, i think
> the "triple pipe' is easier to see. Since the pipe char
> is so rare in Python source, it becomes the obvious
> choice. And, best of all, no more worries about
> "embedded quotes". YAY!
> |||
>
> slstr = |this is a single line string|
>
> The point is people, we should be using string delimiters that are
> ANYTHING besides " and '. Stop being a sheep and use your brain!

So those who do shell scripting from Python might replace this:

subprocess.call("cat {0} | awk '/foo|bar/ {print $3;}' | sort | uniq
>{1}".format(infile, outfile), shell=True)

with this:

subprocess.call(|cat {0} \| awk '/foo\|bar/ {print $3;}' \| sort \|
uniq >{1}|.format(infile, outfile), shell=True)

or if we combine Rick's string escaping proposal:

subprocess.call(|cat {0} <PIPE> awk '/foo<PIPE>bar/ {print $3;}'
<PIPE> sort <PIPE> uniq <GT>{1}|.format(infile, outfile), shell=True)

Yeah, that's so much better.  I especially like how nice and readable
the regex is now.