Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!xstor!bang!iverson From: iverson@bang.uucp (Superuser) Newsgroups: comp.std.c Subject: Re: comment style Message-ID: <1990Dec29.095119.2206@bang.uucp> Date: 29 Dec 90 09:51:19 GMT References: <26036@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> <1990Dec27.215842.23685@ivy.uucp> Organization: House of the Smoking Gun Lines: 42 In article mcdaniel@adi.com (Tim McDaniel) writes: >iverson@ivy.uucp (Tim Iverson) screwed up, I'm afraid. Arrrggggghhhh! Yes, I screwed up - though I can honestly say that in 5 years of programming in C, I've never had a problem with it. Probably because comments /* in the middle */ of a line are rare (nonexistent in my own code). > gcc -Wall -ansi -pedantic 72.c I should have known this group would be full of nit-picking pedants :-) > 72.c:2: warning: `/*' within comment > 72.c:3: warning: `/*' within comment > 72.c:3: unterminated string or character constant I also never intended the actual lines to be fed into a real compiler. They were intended to illustrate a point and communicate at the same time - after all, walking and chewing gum at the same time works. >The `*/' on line 3 ends the comment block. Iverson's scheme works >only if all existing comments fall at the end of the line. After reading this and realizing the flaw in this technique, I kept on trying to justify using to myself, but the only thing about it that appeals to me now is that it is esthetically pleasing to look at - it really jumps out of the page on a listing. Perhaps now I'll change to using #ifdef full-time instead of just for permanent out-takes. >In any event, the comment is wrong. `*' is a metacharacter for the >grep program, so the pattern matches lines starting with one or more >`/'s. "^/\*\*/" is more correct, when such comments are not indented. Well, obviously you understood what I meant, but your escapes are actually just as correct as mine (i.e. dead wrong - Ha! I just had to find some nit to pick in your posting :-). Try grep "^/\\*\\*/"; the shell eats your unescaped escape. >Tim McDaniel Applied Dynamics Int'l.; Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA >Internet: mcdaniel@adi.com UUCP: {uunet,sharkey}!amara!mcdaniel - Tim Iverson uunet!xstor!iverson