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From: bet@ecsvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: /bin/sh feature?
Message-ID: <2914@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 11-Jul-84 18:17:09 EDT
Article-I.D.: ecsvax.2914
Posted: Wed Jul 11 18:17:09 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 14-Jul-84 01:22:26 EDT
References: ucf-cs.1370 uvm-cs.274
Lines: 16

> This points out the hazard of using ':' for a comment delimiter instead
> of '#'.  The shell DOES interpret special characters like quotes and
> parentheses after the ':', whereas everything on a line after a '#' is
> ignored (at least on 4.1bsd systems).  Thus, in your example the apostrophe
> is taken as the start of a quoted literal which never ends.  I've seen
> similar problems here and so I advise my shell programmers to use '#'
> as the comment delimiter.  I'd be interested in hearing whether this is
> indeed a bug or feature.
> 				Ben Goldfarb
> 				{duke,decvax,princeton}!ucf-cs!goldfarb

Sounds like useful behavior; by preceeding a statement with a colon it gets
commented out even if it is continued on the next line, no?

					Bennett Todd
					...{decvax,ihnp4,akgua}!mcnc!ecsvax!bet