CIF2 syntax document for COMCIFS approval

[Ralf W. Grosse-Kunstleve]

Dear Herb,

>    Without the treble quotes, the new quoting syntax  leaves such

> large gaps in the handling of existing data sets, I would  then
> have to change my vote to "no".   Personally, I would prefer
> to  simply adopt the python quoting syntax in its entirety including
> both unicode  and raw string support, but I cannot see that
> happening

Why is this seen as a big problem? It has already been solved by many
people many times.
I'd be happy to refer directly to Python in the CIF2 specification,
in its entirety (but of course only for the new triple-quoted strings
to preserve backward compatibility).
That would solve all practical issues with one sentence. Later, in case
of doubt about technical details, we can simply look at the Python
implementation.
The Python implementation is mature and time tested. I think most people
will be far less surprised if we adopt the Python semantics instead
of making a mistake.

Ralf