Re: [sv-bc] Where, oh where, can my comment be?

From: Greg Jaxon <Greg.Jaxon_at_.....>
Date: Tue Sep 25 2007 - 11:26:46 PDT
Steven Sharp wrote:
>> This sounds weird, but the LRM does not seem to say anywhere where a
>> comment can be placed (unless otherwise specified). I think the general
>> rule is that a comment can be placed anywhere white space can.
> 
> You could say that comments are tokens that are ignored.

A lot turns on the wordsmithing of this text.  I think it belongs in
an extensive discussion of preprocessing.  Recall that the aboriginal
form of "token gluing" relied on a comment that behaved like a token
separator at one layer of macro expansion, but would then vanish
leaving no whitespace so that the next layer would "glue" the expanded
tokens together.

I also note that comments cannot appear on `line directives, and
perhaps there are other exceptions.

Finally, the infamous directives inside comments live with (some of) us still.
These contradict the idea that all comments are "ignored" and
yet they need to behave outwardly just like comments - either
becoming whitespace, or admitting token gluing.  (Imagine: a directive
mid-token; what a powerful language 8-) gag...

> The LRM already states that they are tokens.  It fails to say that they
> are ignored.  It does state that white space is a token, and that it is
> ignored.  So yes, comments would follow the same rule as white space.
> 
> Steven Sharp
> sharp@cadence.com
> 
> 


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Received on Tue Sep 25 11:27:10 2007

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