Long code snippets that are relevant to the question

Question

Sometimes there's need for including large chunks of data/code in a question. (See comments to the question: the OP tried to include a couple of long XML files, but that wasn't possible.)

What's the recommended approach to including code/data, when there's just too much of it to embed in the question?

I could think of a few approaches myself:

• Paste the data to a pastebin and link (and wait for the links to die)
• Encode the (compressed) data in an image and include that (kludgy!)
• Implement an attachment feature in Stack Overflow (which will probably be abused)

Answer 1

Nobody needs to throw ten tons of code into a question.

Nobody.

Plus, tl;dr syndrome guarantees that the more crap you throw in a question the more likely it is you won't get an answer.

Hell, I think the max question length should be dropped by 3/4. I've heard that skill in asking a question is more important than length. Or was it column width? Anyhow, a massive code dump smells like what it sounds like. Stop it. Don't.