Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!nih-csl!elsie!ado
From: ado@elsie.UUCP (Arthur David Olson)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Nested Comments (long summary)
Message-ID: <90136@elsie.UUCP>
Date: 24 Feb 90 01:06:32 GMT
References: <1523@wacsvax.OZ> <13706@cbnewsc.ATT.COM> <4286@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU> <1990Feb22.195335.14690@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: NIH-LEC, Bethesda, MD
Lines: 12

> > To draw the bottom line I would propose: A compiler may well warn
> > about the sequence slash-asterix *within* a comment...
> 
> The Holy Scriptures (Oct 88 draft) in fact mention this as a common warning.

The mention occurs in the Apocrypha. . .er, in an Appendix.  The Standard
itself says "The contents of a comment are examined *only* to identify
multibyte characters and to find the characters */ that terminate it"
(emphasis added).  Since Standard-conforming compilers can only look for
the terminating */, they cannot hunt for /*'s, at least by my reading.
-- 
	Arthur David Olson   ado@alw.nih.gov   ADO is a trademark of Ampex.