Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!jhunix!gwollman
From: gwollman@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU (Garrett A Wollman)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Re^4: Why nested comments not allowed?
Message-ID: <4298@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU>
Date: 21 Feb 90 14:16:49 GMT
References: <1525@wacsvax.OZ> <13771@cbnewsc.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: gwollman@jhunix.UUCP (Garrett A Wollman)
Organization: The Johns Hopkins University - otherwise none
Lines: 29

In article <13771@cbnewsc.ATT.COM> dalenber@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (Russel Dalenberg) writes:
>I said: how do you handle the case where the above line of legal C is
>commented out.  If it's not commented out, there is no problem.
>
>The "usual" way to comment out such code would be:
>
>/*	printf("A comment is ended with */"); */
>
>Since quotes have *NO* significance within comments, the above comment
>ends with the first "*/" found; with *both* nested and non-nested comments!

I was one of those people in Dan Barrett's class.  My program has
a simple hook which can be enabled (call it "STRINGINCOMM") which
can handle such situations...AT A PRICE.  In *EITHER* style, you can
EITHER handle this situation correctly, or you can handle

/* ho hum, this is a quote chatacter -->" */

correctly.  Without knowing the programmer's intentions wrt comments,
it is *impossible* to handle both cases correctly in the same decommenter.

-GAWollman


-- 
"All societies are based on rules to protect pregnant women and children.
 . . . As racial survival is the only universal morality, no other bases
 is possible."           - Lazarus Long [RAH, _TEFL_]
---------------Hopkins doesn't *want* my opinions------------------------