The error messages for unterminated strings are inconsistent, oddly formulated and sometimes point to the wrong point in the code. They are also untested, which led to #3379. I tried and failed to fix this myself in #3392.

• A ' is not unexpected in these cases:

  $ coffee -pe "'"
  [stdin]:1:1: error: unexpected '
  '
  ^
  
  $ coffee -pe "console.log 'foo"
  [stdin]:1:13: error: unexpected '
  console.log 'foo
              ^
  
  $ coffee -ps
  console.log 'foo
  console.log "bar"
  [stdin]:1:13: error: unexpected '
  console.log 'foo
              ^
  

• What does “, starting” mean?

  $ coffee -pe '"'
  [stdin]:1:1: error: missing ", starting
  "
  ^
  
  $ coffee -pe 'console.log "foo'
  [stdin]:1:13: error: missing ", starting
  console.log "foo
              ^
  
  $ coffee -ps
  console.log "foo
  console.log 'bar'  
  [stdin]:1:13: error: missing ", starting
  console.log "foo
              ^
  

• These cases might seem unrelated to unterminated strings, but in a way they are. They were caused by the programmer forgetting to close the “foo” string of the first line. It also seems easy to mess this up; See Improve error messages for unterminated strings #3392. Also, the case with double quotes is wrong.

  $ coffee -ps
  console.log 'foo
  console.log 'bar'
  [stdin]:2:14: error: unexpected bar
  console.log 'bar'
              ^^^
  
  $ coffee -ps
  console.log "foo
  console.log "bar"
  [stdin]:2:17: error: missing ", starting
  console.log "bar"
                  ^
  

• In interpolations, all errors point to the same place. The pointer should be at either the opening or closing delimiter. Also notice that suddenly ' strings are expected, and the weird “missing X, starting” type of message is used instead.

  $ coffee -ps
  "#{'}"
  [stdin]:1:1: error: missing ', starting
  "#{'}"
  ^
  
  $ coffee -ps
  "#{"}"
  [stdin]:1:1: error: missing }, starting
  "#{"}"
  ^
  
  $ coffee -ps
  "#{foo '}"
  [stdin]:1:1: error: missing ', starting
  "#{foo '}"
  ^
  
  $ coffee -ps
  "#{foo "}"
  [stdin]:1:1: error: missing }, starting
  "#{foo "}"
  ^