[pmwiki-users] Using Page Text Variables {$:Var} for multi-line Includes

[Patrick R. Michaud]

On Tue, Oct 24, 2006 at 05:49:54AM -0400, The Editor wrote:
> On 10/16/06, Patrick R. Michaud <pmichaud at pobox.com> wrote:
> > > The content of the address variable would start after the first carriage
> > > return and would end when a paragraph end is encountered: two returns
> > > would be required to end the variable definition.
> >
> > The classic approach to this is known as the "heredoc", where one
> > says "everything up to XYZ marker".  So, something like this could
> > work if we assume that the XYZ marker is "a blank line".
> 
> Actually this would be the perfect solution for me.  PLEASE do this,
> or make it an option.

We just need to come up with a syntax for specifying the end-of-text
marker, assuming that someone wants blank lines in the value.

> I already use a double line break (a single blank line) as the
> delimiter between data fields, and it works great. If you want to
> include line breaks in a post, ZAP automatically converts each blank
> line to a [[<<]] so it doesn't trigger the end of the data.  Whether
> using ZAP or not, that would make text vars capable of the same thing.

It might be worth noting that [[<<]] really doesn't mean the
same thing as "blank line"... it generates a substantially different
output.

Pm