[Haskell-cafe] string literals and haskell'

[David Roundy]

I've just been annoyed with errors ghc reports when I use a string literal
such as ":\/:" (which is a contructor in darcs).  Of course, it wants
":\\/:", but I'd rather type the former.  Is there any reason why the
language couldn't be modified (e.g. in haskell') to make the former legal?
i.e. to treat string literals with '\\' followed by a character that
doesn't describe an escape as a literal backslash? It makes the rules a bit
more complicated, but doesn't modify the meaning of any currently-legal
code, and removes a potential error.
-- 
David Roundy
Department of Physics
Oregon State University