return and newlines?

Question

I was messing around with something today, where I'm returning a DOM tree. I was wondering if there was a way to have the code be like:

return
  '<div id="something"> \
     <p>Stuff</p> \
   </div>'

instead of:

return '<div id="something"> \
     <p>Stuff</p> \
   </div>'

just for aesthetic reasons - the first one looks better. I Googled it for about 10 minutes, then figured I ought to just ask those who know more than me.

Just to note: the first example isn't working for me, but the second one is, so that's why I posted... — Connor, Aug 12 '11 at 06:48
The first one evaluates to `return; ...` so it returns nothing. — Jacob, Aug 12 '11 at 06:49
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/805107/multiline-strings-in-javascript/805755#805755 — KooiInc, Aug 12 '11 at 07:02
Thanks everyone! All very great responses that got upvoted, and I appreciate your time. — Connor, Aug 12 '11 at 07:03

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 12 '11 at 06:49

7

No, it isn't.

A new line after a return triggers semi-colon insertion, so the code is equivalent to:

return;
  '<div id="something"> \
     <p>Stuff</p> \
   </div>';

…and you return undefined.

answered Aug 12 '11 at 06:49

Quentin

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score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 12 '11 at 06:50

2

I'm afraid not. Javascript sees the return-on-a-single-line and inserts a semicolon, ending the control flow.

answered Aug 12 '11 at 06:50

Jens Roland

27,450
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score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 12 '11 at 06:53

2

What comes closest to what you want is probably

return '\
   <div id="something"> \
       <p>stuff</p> \
   </div>';

Other then that I don't think it's possible

answered Aug 12 '11 at 06:53

Johan

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Or perhaps `return (` + newline + string + `);` – nnnnnn Aug 12 '11 at 07:16

return and newlines?

3 Answers3

Linked

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