[erlang-questions] Multi-line comments in Erlang

[Richard O'Keefe]

On 8/12/2010, at 12:41 PM, Jesper Louis Andersen wrote:

> On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 11:14 PM, Richard O'Keefe <ok@REDACTED> wrote:
>> 
>> /* ... */ comments have no known advantages over % comments;
>> with adequate editing tools it is equally easy to "comment out"
>> or "comment in" a region either way and they are equally easy
>> to type or reformat.
> 
> Is it, in Prolog acceptable to nest layers of /* .. */ ?

No, most definitely NOT.  I did say they were PL/I-style comments,
which do not nest.  Nesting comments are one of those clever ideas
that turn out to be really dumb, because they don't actually work.

> It tend to be
> that case which is hard to implement.

As it happens, my Prolog tidier has code to convert plain bracketed
comments to standard form *and* nesting bracketed comments to
standard form.  As you can see, there is not a great deal of
difference.

static void
com2plain(FILE * card, FILE *line, int astcom, int endcom) {
    int c;
    int state;

    enter_comment       
    for (state = 1; (c = getc(card)) >= 0; ) {
        if (c == endcom && state != 0) break;
        state = c == astcom;
        copy_comment(c);
    }
    leave_ast_comment
    if (c < 0) SyntaxError(eofinrem);
}


static void   
com2nest(FILE * card, FILE *line, int begcom, int astcom, int endcom) {
    int c;       
    int state;
    int level;

    enter_comment
    for (state = 1, level = 1; (c = getc(card)) >= 0; ) {
        if (c == endcom && state == 1) {
            if (--level == 0) break;
        } else
        if (c == astcom && state == 2) {
            level++;
        }
        state = c == astcom ? 1 : c == begcom ? 2 : 0;
        copy_comment(c);
    }
    leave_ast_comment
    if (c < 0) SyntaxError(eofinrem);
}

Today I'd do that a bit differently, of course.

> Today, I see little need for them.