putting comments in nroff/troff--var

[ajs]

>> Subject: putting comments in nroff/troff--various ways

All this talk of how to put comments in documents  leads me to espousing
what I think is a good general principle, too often overlooked:

"When  designing a program  that reads input  data,  design a way to put
comments into the input data."

There are about ten  well-known  UN*X  configuration  files.  Some, like
/etc/termcap,  were  designed  "right".  Some, like  /etc/rc, are really
shell  scripts,  so you are  home  free.  Some,  like  /etc/inittab  and
/usr/lib/crontab,  allow comments by accident -- unrecognized  lines are
ignored (in AT&T versions  anyway), so you can insert comments and blank
lines;  commands are passed through  /bin/sh, so you can comment them on
the right  side with "#".  Most,  however,  just  don't let you get away
with it, and it's a shame.

In particular, it would be *really nice* to be able to put comments in
/etc/passwd, and in L.sys, and in sed(1) scripts (any sed scripts).

Alan Silverstein, Hewlett-Packard Fort Collins Systems Division, Colorado
{ihnp4 | hplabs}!hpfcla!ajs, 303-226-3800 x3053, N 40 31'31" W 105 00'43"