nested comments

[pcf at drux3.UUCP]

> ...  In another language design, there are probably better ways to
> go--such as Ada's "--" which is ALWAYS terminated at end of line.
> (Commenting out a section of code is easy; just prefix each line with --.)

# ifdef ignore

Assuming that you have at most, one comment ending per line, then 
isn't prefixing each line with '/*' just as easy as '--'.

( O.K. so you have to put a '*/' at the end of the block. )

# endif

BCPL (parent of C) has both '/*'..'*/' block comments  and  '//' to end of
line comments.  One tends to use '/*'..'*/' for long comments and '//' for
in-line mixed code and comment. Hence you can use '/*' .. '*/' to comment
out a block of code that has '//' comments. In many years of using BCPL, I
never had any problem with nesting comments and do not know if block comments
nest. I think that '//' would be a useful, compatible, etc addition to C.

	/*
	for( ;; )
	{
		switch(c)
		{
		case 0:	break;		// continue loop
		case 1:	continue;	// break out of loop
		}

		break;	// continue with rest of program
	}
	*/


Peter C. Fry
drux3!pcf