mab@druxp.UUCP (BlandMA) (09/07/84)
> > 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). I've written some non-trivial programs using sed(1), and my technique for including "comments" is by including them as patterns that will never match, effectively making them nops. Example: /-- this is a sed "comment" --/d /### here is another comment/p Of course, if the input happens to contain the text between slashes, the command following the slash will get executed. Thus, it's not foolproof, but it can be used for commenting sed scripts when you know enough about the input to choose your comments wisely. This technique also wastes cpu cycles, since the comments are scanned as patterns, but if I were that concerned about cycles, I wouldn't use sed for some jobs. -- Alan Bland (ihnp4!druxp!mab) AT&T-ISL Denver
adm@cbneb.UUCP (09/10/84)
#R:ucbtopaz:-53600:cbnap:27300006:000:391 cbnap!whp Sep 9 22:07:00 1984 An interesting bug in n/troff regarding comments is that a comment following a command must be preceeded by spaces and not tabs! That is, .xx \" this comment preceeded by a tab, and may cause n/troff to blow up. .xx \" this comment is preceeded by 5 blanks, and will work ok. The reason for this is obscure, but the bug was reported and will be fixed (hopefully) in a future release.
ajs@hpfcla.UUCP (ajs) (09/17/84)
>> 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"