223938 - concat operator isn't supported by rewrite

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core :: Preferences: Backend, defect)

Description

[timeless]

pref("test","i"+ " am " +
" a " + 'test ');

Should work, and was documented to work in one of the files I was
reading :).

Comment 1

[Darin Fisher]

...and do we really care?

Comment 2

[Mike Shaver (:shaver emeritus)]

That used to be the canonical way of putting really long strings in prefs, to
avoid violating the 80th column.  I probably have some 4.x pref files like that,
somewhere.  (Lists of hostnames/domains, usually, IIRC, from when I had proxy
config in user.js for tweaking from ifup-post.)

Comment 3

[Alec Flett]

we've never truly claimed support for user.js - the few people who use it have
been responsible for nagging people to fix it when it breaks. In any case, I
think if people can figure out how to use user.js then they can also deal with
80+ column prefs. 

In any case, the regular prefs.js files that have been generated by 4.x and
mozilla have always ignored the 80 column rule and just written out the full
string. Since that is the type of file that we're trying to support, we really
don't need this. 

Its not INVALID, but I would recommend we say WONTFIX.

Comment 4

[Mike Shaver (:shaver emeritus)]

I don't know what would constitute "truly claiming support" -- it probably isn't
in a product brochure, to be sure -- but we do have a fair bit of documentation
that refers to such files, including a fair bit that's targetted at end users
(like the FAQ):

http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Amozilla.org+user.js

Comment 5

[Mike Shaver (:shaver emeritus)]

Given that we're not going to support all of JS -- some twisted people like
myself used to actually have functions and loops and whatnot in their user.js,
but both of us will live -- maybe the right thing is just to give loud warnings
that people need to update their user.js bits to the new minimal syntax?

Comment 6

[Alec Flett]

oh great. All I have to say is the people who edited those FAQs, etc, just
assumed we 'supported' it.. I agree 'support' is vague and undefined, but the
pref owners have always taken the attitude that user.js is kind of a
nice-to-have... oh well I guess we should probably just consider it 'supported'
now whatever that means :)

but anyhow, yeah I guess we should warn people and update any bad examples...

Comment 7

[Nigel McFarlane]

The generated file could be generated/initially installed with
further lines of JavaScript comment. The fact that the file _looks_
like JavaScript but is not parsed that way (sometimes) is confusing
enough for such a comment to be useful. eg:

// This file may be examined without a JavaScript interpreter. Don't
// assume JS language features are supported without testing first.

Comment 8

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

(Filter "spam" on 'prefs-nobody-20080612'.)

Comment 9

[Nicholas Nethercote [inactive]]

Despite the fact that prefs files have .js suffixes, they most certainly aren't JavaScript, and this isn't going to change. WONTFIX.