C, embedded comments and preprocessors

[Karl Heuer]

In article <1990Sep20.000536.19987 at ccu.umanitoba.ca> mills at ccu.umanitoba.ca (Gary Mills) writes:
>lwv27 at CAS.BITNET writes:
>>I have for some time commented out portions of code by surrounding them by
>>a construct similar to: [attempt to use /* ... /* ... */ ... */]

No offense, but I'm astounded that some people think nested comment-parsing
is normal behavior.  (Whether it *should* be is irrelevant.  The fact is that
it isn't and never has been%.)

>A better way to remove some code from the compilation is with:
>	#ifndef OLD_STUFF
>	lines of code   /*  line comment */
>	lines of various text's comments
>	lines of code   /*  line comment */
>	#endif

No, that still won't work$.  The middle line of those three was commentary
rather than code, and the apostrophe is still an unclosed character constant.
The correct solution is to use /*...*/ for comments and #if...#endif for code
removal, e.g.
	#if 0
	lines of code   /*  line comment */
	/*
	lines of various text's comments
	*/
	lines of code   /*  line comment */
	#endif

Karl W. Z. Heuer (karl at kelp.ima.isc.com or ima!kelp!karl), The Walking Lint
________
% Don't bother telling me it works in *your* compiler.  I don't care; it still
  isn't legal.
$ See previous footnote.