CODEWITHSUNDEEP
stringgoliteralsidioms
joshlf
joshlf

Reputation: 23597

Best practice for long string literals in Go

I've got a long string literal in Go:

db.Exec("UPDATE mytable SET (I, Have, Lots, Of, Fields) = ('suchalongvalue', 'thisislongaswell', 'ohmansolong', 'wowsolong', 'loooooooooooooooooooooooooong')")

I see two ways to make this more manageable: raw quotes, or multiple concatenated quotes:

db.Exec(`UPDATE mytable SET (I, Have, Lots, Of, Fields) 
         = ('suchalongvalue', 'thisislongaswell', 'ohmansolong', 
            'wowsolong', 'loooooooooooooooooooooooooong')`)

db.Exec("UPDATE mytable SET (I, Have, Lots, Of, Fields) = " + 
    "('suchalongvalue', 'thisislongaswell', 'ohmansolong', " +
    "'wowsolong', 'loooooooooooooooooooooooooong')")

The first feels more right, but the preceding spaces will be included in the string, making the resulting string have awkward runs of spaces in it. Is either of these considered idiomatic Go?

Upvotes: 32

Views: 20666

Answers (5)

Phong
Phong

Reputation: 69

I prefer:

var updateStatement = `
    UPDATE
        mytable
    SET
        I = 'suchalongvalue'
        ,Have = 'thisislongaswell'
        ,Lots = 'ohmansolong'
        ,Of = 'wowsolong'
        ,Fields = 'loooooooooooooooooooooooooong'
`
func update(updateStatement string) {
    db.Exec(updateStatement)
}

Should looks much more cleaner. At least thats been taught to me.

Upvotes: 5

Marcelo Cantos
Marcelo Cantos

Reputation: 185970

Since we're talking about SQL in this instance…

It is rare to pass string literals as column values in an INSERT or UPDATE. You'll almost always be passing in computed values from code, in which case it's far better to use parameterized queries. In the rare case where you do know a value at compile time, parameterization is still generally the right answer:

_, err := db.Exec(
    `UPDATE mytable SET (I, Have, Lots, Of, Fields) = ($1, $2, $3, $4, $5)`,
    "suchalongvalue",
    "thisislongaswell",
    "ohmansolong",
    "wowsolong",
    "loooooooooooooooooooooooooong")

Upvotes: 1

Sebastian Macias
Sebastian Macias

Reputation: 117

This is what I do:

q := `UPDATE mytable SET (I, Have, Lots, Of, Fields) = ` +
     `('suchalongvalue', ` + 
     `'thisislongaswell', ` +
     `'wowsolong', ` + 
     `loooooooooooooooooooooooooong')`

db.Exec(q)

I think it looks a lot cleaner

Upvotes: 9

captncraig
captncraig

Reputation: 23108

It looks weird putting the long string literal in the parameter like that. I would prefer:

const updateQuery=`
UPDATE mytable SET (I, Have, Lots, Of, Fields) 
= ('suchalongvalue', 'thisislongaswell', 'ohmansolong', 
'wowsolong', 'loooooooooooooooooooooooooong')`

func doUpdate(){
  db.Exec(updateQuery)
}

I also prefer a single newline at the beginning to the odd spaces in each line. That way you can kill it with strings.Trim if it causes problems.

Upvotes: 5

Sebastian Bartos
Sebastian Bartos

Reputation: 2497

You could do:

s := `UPDATE mytable SET (I, Have, Lots, Of, Fields) = `
s += `('suchalongvalue', `
s += `'thisislongaswell', `
s += `'wowsolong', `
s += `loooooooooooooooooooooooooong')`

db.Exec(s)

Upvotes: 2

Related Questions