How can I do a line break (line continuation) in Python?

Question

I have a long line of code that I want to break up among multiple lines. What do I use and what is the syntax?

For example, adding a bunch of strings:

e = 'a' + 'b' + 'c' + 'd'

have it like this:

e = 'a' + 'b' 
+ 'c' + 'd'

Answer 1

Put a \ at the end of your line or enclose the statement in parens ( .. ). From IBM:

b = ((i1 < 20) and
     (i2 < 30) and
     (i3 < 40))

or

b = (i1 < 20) and \
    (i2 < 30) and \
    (i3 < 40)

Answer 2

What is the line? You can just have arguments on the next line without any problems:

a = dostuff(blahblah1, blahblah2, blahblah3, blahblah4, blahblah5, 
            blahblah6, blahblah7)

Otherwise you can do somthing like this:

if a = True and \
   b = False

Check the Style Guide for more info.

(edit)

From your example line:

a = '1' + '2' + '3' + \
    '4' + '5'

Or:

a = ('1' + '2' + '3' +
    '4' + '5')

Note that the style guide says that using the implicit continuation with parentheses is preferred, but in this particular case just adding parentheses around your expression is probably the wrong way to go.

Answer 3

From the horse's mouth: Explicit line joining

Two or more physical lines may be joined into logical lines using backslash characters (), as follows: when a physical line ends in a backslash that is not part of a string literal or comment, it is joined with the following forming a single logical line, deleting the backslash and the following end-of-line character. For example:

if 1900 < year < 2100 and 1 <= month <= 12 \
   and 1 <= day <= 31 and 0 <= hour < 24 \
   and 0 <= minute < 60 and 0 <= second < 60:   # Looks like a valid date
        return 1

A line ending in a backslash cannot carry a comment. A backslash does not continue a comment. A backslash does not continue a token except for string literals (i.e., tokens other than string literals cannot be split across physical lines using a backslash). A backslash is illegal elsewhere on a line outside a string literal.

Answer 4

@Harley

From Style Guide for Python Code:

The preferred way of wrapping long lines is by using Python's implied line continuation inside parentheses, brackets and braces. If necessary, you can add an extra pair of parentheses around an expression, but sometimes using a backslash looks better. Make sure to indent the continued line appropriately. The preferred place to break around a binary operator is after the operator, not before it. Some examples:

class Rectangle(Blob):

    def __init__(self, width, height,
                 color='black', emphasis=None, highlight=0):
        if width == 0 and height == 0 and \
           color == 'red' and emphasis == 'strong' or \
           highlight > 100:
            raise ValueError("sorry, you lose")
        if width == 0 and height == 0 and (color == 'red' or
                                           emphasis is None):
            raise ValueError("I don't think so -- values are %s, %s" %
                             (width, height))
        Blob.__init__(self, width, height,
                      color, emphasis, highlight)

Answer 5

The danger in using a backslash to end a line is that if whitespace is added after the backslash (which, of course, is very hard to see), the backslash is no longer doing what you thought it was.

See Python Idioms and Anti-Idioms for more.

Answer 6

You can break lines in between parenthesises and braces. Additionally, you can append the backslash character \ to a line to explicitly break it:

x = (tuples_first_value,
     second_value)
y = 1 + \
    2

Answer 7

Style guide is just a guide. Do it however you prefer to do it.

Answer 8

@all If Tony's point on slashes sometimes looking better (early in the PEP) overrules the latter parts about parens, then why are parens being mandated (and non-parens being deprecated) in Py3k, i.e. the forms raise ValueError('message') print("whatever")

at least the latter one just seems like extra typing.