Forum: support

RE: Using code blocks with line breaks as answers in Answer list [ Reply ] By: Achim Zeileis on 2025-06-10 03:05	[forum:50089]
Thanks for drilling down to this yourself and posting your solution on StackOverflow as well. I have responded there: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/79659588/

RE: Using code blocks with line breaks as answers in Answer list [ Reply ]
By: Caio Hamamura on 2025-06-10 00:43

[forum:50088]

I found the problem. The issue when it is processing the question within [`read_exercise()`](https://r-forge.r-project.org/scm/viewvc.php/pkg/exams/R/read_exercise.R?root=exams#l44).

When we they try to [## make sure we get items on multiple lines right](https://r-forge.r-project.org/scm/viewvc.php/pkg/exams/R/read_metainfo.R?root=exams#l150) there is this line:

```
x <- paste(x, collapse = " ")
```

Which collapses the vector in a single line, completely removing the information of line breaks, if you change it to:

```
x <- paste(x, collapse = "\n")
```

Then it will work fine. I don't know if this will mess with other formats though. But in my end I installed this tweaked version.

Using code blocks with line breaks as answers in Answer list [ Reply ]
By: Caio Hamamura on 2025-06-09 22:40

[forum:50087]

I tried to create a simple question using `code blocks` with `verbatim` environment and compile that to pdf. But the problem is that the line breaks are ignored and the output code block becomes single line.

```latex
\begin{question}
How can I retrieve only the `id` and `name` columns from the `user` table in a SQL database?

\begin{answerlist}
\item \begin{verbatim}
SELECT id, name
FROM user;
\end{verbatim}
\item \begin{verbatim}
SELECT *
FROM user;
\end{verbatim}
\end{answerlist}
\end{question}
```

I assume the \begin{answerlist} has some preprocessing which trims away the line breaks, is there any way to display code blocks as alternatives for `schoice` questions?

I also tried to use markdown "``` " but that doesn't work either.

Inspecting the intermediate exercise1.tex from `texdir` I can see the linebreaks are trimmed away:

```latex
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% exercise1.tex
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
\begin{question}
How can I retrieve only the `id` and `name` columns from the `user` table in a SQL database?

\begin{answerlist}
\item \begin{verbatim} SELECT id, name FROM user; \end{verbatim}
\item \begin{verbatim} SELECT * FROM user; \end{verbatim}
\end{answerlist}
\end{question}
```