Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari!aplcen!jhunix!barrett
From: barrett@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU (Dan Barrett)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Re^4: Why nested comments not allowed?
Message-ID: <4318@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU>
Date: 22 Feb 90 23:09:29 GMT
References: <1525@wacsvax.OZ> <13771@cbnewsc.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: barrett@jhunix.UUCP (Dan Barrett)
Organization: The Johns Hopkins University - HCF
Lines: 30

In article <13771@cbnewsc.ATT.COM> dalenber@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (Russel Dalenberg) writes:
>>>	printf("A comment is ended with */");
>
>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!

	It seems there are 2 issues here.  The first is "How to parse?"
The second is "How to prevent us from tripping ourselves up?

	The statement:

	/*	printf("A comment is ended with */"); */

is easy to parse -- the comment truly closes at the */ in the string.
However, that */ is causing a problem probably unwanted by the programmer.

                                                        Dan

 //////////////////////////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
| Dan Barrett, Department of Computer Science      Johns Hopkins University |
| INTERNET:   barrett@cs.jhu.edu           |                                |
| COMPUSERVE: >internet:barrett@cs.jhu.edu | UUCP:   barrett@jhunix.UUCP    |
 \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/////////////////////////////////////