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From: news@ism780c.isc.com (News system)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Re^2: Why nested comments not allowed?
Message-ID: <39118@ism780c.isc.com>
Date: 22 Feb 90 03:22:32 GMT
References: <236100027@prism> <7330017@hpcllak.HP.COM> <1990Feb19.143619.17663@uncecs.edu> <1975.25e0048c@wums.wustl.edu> <1990Feb20.165353.14212@uncecs.edu> <2037.25e266bf@wums.wustl.edu>
Reply-To: marv@ism780.UUCP (Marvin Rubenstein)
Organization: Interactive Systems Corp., Santa Monica CA
Lines: 26

In article <2037.25e266bf@wums.wustl.edu> bethge@wums.wustl.edu writes:
>OK, I am not understanding you.  Can you enlighten me?  My question is,
>*why* do you want nested comments?  ...

>I know that the *mechanisms* of #ifdef/#endif and nested  comments  are
>different.   But  if the *purpose* is the same, and the *end result* is
>the same, why are both needed?

Not that it is important but #if/#endif cannot be used to 'comment out'
starting in the middle of a line and/or ending at the middle of a line.

Actually, when I 'comment out' it is always for debugging.  In almost every
instance, I also 'comment in' a piece of code.  The method I use (in Unix)
is:

   cp foo.c foo.c.sav
   <munch on foo.c with the editor of my choice>
   cc foo.c
   <try the program>
   mv foo.c.sav foo.c

This is extemely flexible and never results in shipping a 'completed' source
file with what looks like executable code enclosed inside a comment or
#if/#endif.

     Marv Rubinstein