Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!ima!haddock!karl
From: karl@haddock.ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: quotes inside #if 0
Keywords: ANSI, comments
Message-ID: <14512@haddock.ima.isc.com>
Date: 4 Sep 89 19:43:10 GMT
References: <2014@munnari.oz.au>
Reply-To: karl@haddock.ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer)
Organization: Interactive Systems, Cambridge, MA 02138-5302
Lines: 29

In article <2014@munnari.oz.au> ok@cs.mu.oz.au (Richard O'Keefe) writes:
>	#if 0 ... [English text and C examples] ... #endif
>The compiler sees words like "don't" in the English text and snarls that
>these are unterminated character constants.  This used to be perfectly
>good C...

No, what you really mean is that you used to use a compiler that happened not
to complain about that, and now you use one that does.  The introduction of
ANSI C between the two events is largely coincidental.  It never was good C.

Generally, if you want to hide English text from the compiler, you should use
/*...*/, whereas if you want to hide C code, you should use #if...#endif.  I
infer from your posting that this particular instance is English text that
happens to include C code within the running text, i.e. this C code is meant
to be read by humans rather than being a piece of former code that's been
inactivated.  Probably your best bet is to move the comments into the English
text, omitting the comment delimiters.

>Is there a way of having mixed English text and C fragments (possibly
>including C comment delimiters) in a C program which _will_ work in ANSI C?

Alas, there is no perfect commenting convention; unless it's all done with an
awkward prefix like a Hollerith constant, there's always  something that
cannot appear literally in a comment.  In C it's the string "*/", and I'm
afraid you'll have to live with it, or find a new language.  (C++ comes to
mind.  It has remainder-of-line comments, which are okay if you don't mind
putting the prefix on each line.)

Karl W. Z. Heuer (ima!haddock!karl or karl@haddock.isc.com), The Walking Lint