Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!quintus!ok
From: ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: nested comments
Message-ID: <563@cresswell.quintus.UUCP>
Date: 23 Jan 88 03:36:39 GMT
References: <13423@pyramid.pyramid.com> <3460@ihlpf.ATT.COM>
Organization: Quintus Computer Systems, Mountain View, CA
Lines: 19
Summary: against

If you have a pretty-printer (in 4BSD systems, see vgrind(1))
you want commented-out code to be formatted AS CODE, not as
comments.  I have a utility which displays files on a terminal
with comments highlighted.  I want unused code to look like
code (I might want keywords underlined, for example).

#if 0/#endif is exactly right for "commenting out".  (It nests...)

If you have a decent editor it is trivially easy to write a command
which "comments out" a region even without nestable comments.
The trick is this:
	insert */ at the end of the region
	while not at the beginning of the region
	    move back one character
	    if character is '/' replace it by " / "
	insert /* (we are now at the beginning).
Any "/*xxx*/" comment inside will now be broken up as " / *xxx* / ".
Inverting the operation is just as easy: replace each ' / ' in the
region by '/'.