Fontifying unterminated strings [was: CC Mode and electric-pair "problem".]

[Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>]

Hello, Stefan.

On Mon, Jun 18, 2018 at 21:48:41 -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> > char *foo = "foo;
> > int bar = 5;
> > char *baz = "baz";

> > The entire second line, and the third line, up to the first ", get string
> > face.  We've been used to this for so long that we've lost sight of just
> > how bad and amateurish it really is.

> But what about when you write

>     char *thedoc = "Here it is:
>     - First do this
>     - Then do that
>     And that's it!";

> ?

> Both cases are valid transient states.  Which one will occur more often
> depends a lot on the particular kind of code you write and your
> coding habits.

I suggest the most common case by far will be writing

    char *foo = "foo....

in the middle of an existing buffer.

> Emacs can't reliably distinguish the two cases, so whichever behavior it
> chooses it will look "amateurish" in some cases.

No, you've misunderstood my point.  It is not the aesthetic "niceness",
the lack of which is amateurish; it is fontifying as a string something
which isn't a string (as defined by the compiler's error messages).

> I think the better option here is to focus on the following:
> 1- Make sure the programmer is aware there's a problem in its code.
>    I.e. highlight the opening quote or the non-escaped end-of-line or
>    something in bright red or something like that.
> 2- Don't try to guess what the user intended to do.
>    Instead keep our code as simple as possible: the C code we're handed
>    is broken, so there's no real clear "right behavior" anyway.

How about the following suggestion - instead of having permanent
string-fence syntax-table text properties to define the ends of
unterminated strings:
(i) We leave the syntax of the string opener and EOL alone;
(ii) we amend font-{lock,core}.el to apply the desired fontification, to
  be like the new fontification in CC Mode?

This could be done straightforwardly in font-lock by temporarily putting
the string-fence properties on these strings, applying all the face
properties, then removing these properties again.  It would need a few
new customisation variables to specify what counts as an open string,
and so on.

> -- Stefan

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).