[Feature 20261] For IO's line-oriented read methods, there are two special values for the line-separator argument sep; I'm proposing to add (user-friendlier) symbol synonyms for those values:
Subject changed from Add symbol alternatives to '' and nil for IO line separators to Add symbol synonyms for '' and nil for IO method line separator arguments
Propose to add user-friendly synonyms (symbols) for IO line separator arguments '' (read paragraphs) and nil (read all). New symbol arguments would be :paragraph and :slurp. (I think this use of the term slurp is common in Perl and Python.)