Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!qucis!erskine
From: erskine@qucis.queensu.CA (Neil Erskine)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Using \iffalse inside a LaTeX environment definition.
Message-ID: <811@qusuntrd.queensu.CA>
Date: 27 Jul 90 02:17:43 GMT
Organization: Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Lines: 31


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	I have a large number of files written using LaTeX and some
additional macros I wrote.  I sometimes want to suppress certain
parts of them, so I thought to do this by placing some parts in null
environments, as in

\newenvironment{Comments}{}{}
...
\begin{Comments}
Stuff that is sometimes suppressed.
\end{Comments}

I now want to suppress the comments, so I tried

\newenvironment{Comments}{\iffalse}{\fi}

but no dice, TeX (or LaTeX) won't take it.  The first time the
Comments environment is used it complains of a missing \fi.  I suppose
this is one of the standard questions that gets asked here, so don't
flame too loudly; I just want a method that doesn't involve editing
all those files.
				Thanks in advance,
				    Neil

Aside: I tried reading The TeX Book, but this didn't seem to help with
either my problem, or my understanding of how macros get interpreted
or swallowed or digested, or whatever happens to them.

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