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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!ihuxe!foss
From: foss@ihuxe.UUCP (foss)
Newsgroups: net.unix
Subject: Re: Comment lines in the Bourne shell
Message-ID: <1172@ihuxe.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 17-Jun-85 08:54:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihuxe.1172
Posted: Mon Jun 17 08:54:39 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 18-Jun-85 07:43:44 EDT
References: <1194@uwmacc.UUCP>
Distribution: net.unix
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 17

> I've noticed that on my system (2.8BSD) the Bourne shell
> comment character doesn't do what I expected.  The shell
> still looks at some characters on the line, even though
> the line is commented out.  For example, the comment
> 
> : to use this file type <name> | lpr
> 
> produces a message referring to the pipe, even though the whole
> line is commented out.  What am I missing?
> 
.................................

The colon (:) is not just a 'comment' character, it is a command
which has no effect.  The message about the pipe is to be expected.
Try using the octothorpe (#) as a comment character.

R. M. Foss