I have just noticed that commenting a section of code by doing a surround selection * not only surrounds the highlighted text with /* */, but it also disrupts existing /* */ comments. It puts a space between the / and * effectively negating the comment. This is a problem because when you uncomment the same block, the spaces that it added between / and * (or * and /) are not removed.
This caused me a fair amount of grief today when I had commented out (and then later uncommented) a fairly large section of code that had many /* */ blocks in it. I had to spend time going back through my code to remove the spaces that had been added just so that the compiler would no longer think that it needed to compile those lines.
Is there any way for VAX to remember where it added those spaces, and then remove them when the block is uncommented? I don't figure that would be possible so I suggest an alternative: if the block of code being commented out with a * has any /* */ comment blocks within it, then simply switch the comment to // for each line in the block instead of /* */ around the entire block. This is as easy to uncomment as /* */ and prevents the undesirable effect of the extra spaces in the comment characters.
it actually HAS to do this to make it work. otherwise the first */ would end the inserted /* and you would have a bigger mess. A possible solution would be to insert a special char between * and / (like -? or %).
I realize that, and that's why I suggested the alternate commenting style of // for the highlighed block when there are existing /* */ blocks within the highlighted block.
Not to stir up the topic, but VA X inserts a space between /* when surrounding with * to comment. VA X removes the space when uncommenting, assuming you uncomment the entire selection you commented.
Pressing * when this line is selected:
int x = 0; /* someComment */
Yields this:
/*
int x = 0; / * someComment * /
*/
Pressing * again, ie when all three lines are selected, returns the code to its original state.
I just tried it again, and lo and behold, it doesn't forget to remove the spaces anymore. I know it used to because I had to manually remove them before. Oh well, at least now it works. Thanks.
Topic Locked
Posted - Jun 23 2004 : 5:09:05 PM
