Why nested comments not allowed?

[Russel Dalenberg]

In article <4686 at jarthur.Claremont.EDU>, dfoster at jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Derek R. Foster) writes:
>    If people wish to argue about the aesthetics of nested comments vs.
>    #ifdef/#endif, that's fine, but arguments like
> 
> "But with nested (or "but with non-nested...") comments, how can I do 
>   printf("/* some horrible abomination with lots of /* and */ */");
> 
>    are NOT MEANINGFUL, since the same problems exist with/without nested
>    comments, just in different situations!

I agree.  I only posted  my printf example to point out that parsing
nested comments would not be "simple".

>                                            And it's the code-writer's fault!

Well, in the sense that all the code a programmer writes is his "fault", I
agree. But I think it's perfectly reasonable to put comment delimiters in
a string (and quotes in comments).

> 4) If you write code that depends on whether comments are nested or not,
>    it's not the compiler's fault, it's YOURS, and you deserve what you get!

No. Comments in C are *defined* not to nest. It's perfectly reasonable to
expect then not to nest, and program accordingly.

>    Encode /* and */ before putting them in strings!

I think this is foolish overkill. It can't hurt your code, but it can
make it harder to read and maintain.


Russel Dalenberg

att!ihlpb!dalenber
dalenber at ihlpb.att.com

Disclaimer: These are my opinions, not AT&T's