What's the cleanest way to write a multiline string in JavaScript? [duplicate]

Answer 1

Here's one that may be helpful during development when using Chrome.

function FSTR(f) {
    // remove up to comment start and trailing spaces and one newline
    s = f.toString().replace(/^.*\/\* *\r?\n/,"");
    // remove the trailing */} with preceeding spaces and newline
    s = s.replace(/\n *\*\/\s*\}\s*$/,"")
    return s;
}

s = FSTR(function(){/*
uniform vec2 resolution;
uniform float time;

void main(void)
{
    vec2 p = -1.0 + 2.0 * gl_FragCoord.xy / resolution.xy;
    vec2 cc = vec2( cos(.25*time), sin(.25*time*1.423) );
    ...
    float color = sqrt(sqrt(dmin))*0.7;
    gl_FragColor = vec4(color,color,color,1.0);
}
*/});

This does not work for Firefox, although it works in Chrome.

Example use would be for writing/testing webgl shaders. During development this is much nicer to work with and later you can always run over this with a simple regexp that converts that syntax into a cross-browser version.

Answer 2

var str = [
    "line 1",
    "line 2",
    "line 3"
].join("");
// str will contain "line1line2line3"

If you actually want newlines in the string, then replace .join("") with .join("\n")/

Answer 3

Consistently.

Whichever way you choose, do it exactly the same way throughout your application. If you're working on an application that already has code written, accept the convention they set and go with it.