Group comment

**Skip Montanaro** · Jul 18 '05, 08:54 AM

Re: Group comment

ketulp> Can I comment a group of statements together i.e
ketulp> If I a 4 statements say:
ketulp> i=1
ketulp> i+=1
ketulp> print i
ketulp> print i+1

ketulp> Instead of commenting each satement iindividually by # is there
ketulp> something which allws me to comment these 4 statements in one go
ketulp> as in C++ using /*...*/

Many people use triple-quoted strings for this:

"""
i=1
i+=1
print i
print i+1
"""

It's not a comment, strictly speaking, however it generally achieves the
desired results. Even less comment-like is "if False:":

if False:
i=1
i+=1
print i
print i+1

That has the disadvantage that you need to reindent the lines of interest.

Skip

**Diez B. Roggisch** · Jul 18 '05, 08:54 AM

Re: Group comment

Use (x)emacs and type

M-x comment-region

Type

C-u M-x comment-region

to uncomment. Of course you can bind that to keys. C-c-< and C-c-> will
dedent/indent the current selection. Very useful.

--
Regards,

Diez B. Roggisch

**Chema Cortes** · Jul 18 '05, 08:54 AM

Re: Group comment

Skip Montanaro <skip <at> pobox.com> writes:
[color=blue]
> Many people use triple-quoted strings for this:
>
> """
> i=1
> i+=1
> print i
> print i+1
> """
>
> It's not a comment, strictly speaking, however it generally achieves the
> desired results.[/color]

But as colateral effect it will be interpreted like a doc string. It's better to
make it as a tuple:

("""
i=1
i+=1
print i
print i+1
""")

or, like a hybrid:

if 0:"""
i=1
i+=1
print i
print i+1
"""

**Kurt B. Kaiser** · Jul 18 '05, 08:55 AM

Re: Group comment

ketulp_baroda@y ahoo.com writes:
[color=blue]
> Can I comment a group of statements together i.e
> If I a 4 statements say:[/color]

IDLE has a block comment feature.
--
KBK

**ziaran** · Jul 18 '05, 08:55 AM

Re: Group comment

Skip Montanaro wrote:[color=blue]
> ketulp> Can I comment a group of statements together i.e
> ketulp> If I a 4 statements say:
> ketulp> i=1
> ketulp> i+=1
> ketulp> print i
> ketulp> print i+1
>
> ketulp> Instead of commenting each satement iindividually by # is there
> ketulp> something which allws me to comment these 4 statements in one go
> ketulp> as in C++ using /*...*/
>
> Many people use triple-quoted strings for this:
>
> """
> i=1
> i+=1
> print i
> print i+1
> """
>
> It's not a comment, strictly speaking, however it generally achieves the
> desired results. Even less comment-like is "if False:":
>
> if False:
> i=1
> i+=1
> print i
> print i+1
>
> That has the disadvantage that you need to reindent the lines of interest.
>
> Skip
>[/color]

And keep the """ at the same identation level of the clause!

**David Bolen** · Jul 18 '05, 08:55 AM

Re: Group comment

"Diez B. Roggisch" <nospam-deets@web.de> writes:
[color=blue]
> Use (x)emacs and type
>
> M-x comment-region
>
> Type
>
> C-u M-x comment-region
>
> to uncomment. Of course you can bind that to keys. C-c-< and C-c-> will
> dedent/indent the current selection. Very useful.[/color]

Since presumably you're using python-mode (from your comment about the
dedent/indent bindings), you may like to know that the commenting
commands are already bound to keys by default. C-c # to comment,
C-u C-c # to uncomment.

-- David

**Bengt Richter** · Jul 18 '05, 08:57 AM

Re: Group comment

On Mon, 1 Mar 2004 08:57:56 -0600, Skip Montanaro <skip@pobox.com > wrote:
[color=blue]
>
> ketulp> Can I comment a group of statements together i.e
> ketulp> If I a 4 statements say:
> ketulp> i=1
> ketulp> i+=1
> ketulp> print i
> ketulp> print i+1
>
> ketulp> Instead of commenting each satement iindividually by # is there
> ketulp> something which allws me to comment these 4 statements in one go
> ketulp> as in C++ using /*...*/
>
>Many people use triple-quoted strings for this:
>
> """
> i=1
> i+=1
> print i
> print i+1
> """[/color]

Though there's always the corner case where there's already something triple-quoted in
the segment you want to comment/quote out.

If we had string-delimited quoting a la mime, we could solve that. E.g.,

q'arbitrary string'<this is '''quoted''' and """triple is ignored""" ...>'arbitrary string'

or
Q'arbitrary string'
<this is '''quoted''' and """triple is ignored""" ...>
'arbitrary string'

Where the upper case Q signals the syntax that the line tail after the delimiter is ignored.
(thus the second quote above also includes the \n at the end of the quoted < ...> line)

thus

Q'XXX'
i=1
i+=1
print i
print i+1
'XXX'

and then no problem to do:

Q'YYY'
Q'XXX'
i=1
i+=1
print i
print i+1
'XXX'
'YYY'

(The single quotes are for readability, not part of the actual quoting delimiters)
You could deal with the final-escape char problem if you had a no-escapes raw string
version of this. Maybe signal that with double quoted delimiter strings, e.g.,

q"+++"this ends in backslash\"+++"

which would define the same string constant as 'this ends in backslash\\'

[color=blue]
>
>It's not a comment, strictly speaking, however it generally achieves the
>desired results. Even less comment-like is "if False:":
>
> if False:
> i=1
> i+=1
> print i
> print i+1
>
>That has the disadvantage that you need to reindent the lines of interest.[/color]

The other side of the coin is that it's sometimes useful to write

if True:
# .. pasted code that has indentation

"if True" is also handy to defer processing in interactive mode, e.g.,
[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>>> print 'hi'[/color][/color][/color]
hi[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>>> print 'ho'[/color][/color][/color]
ho[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>>> if True:[/color][/color][/color]
... print 'hi'
... print 'ho'
...
hi
ho

That's my clpy quota for today ;-)

Regards,
Bengt Richter

**Josiah Carlson** · Jul 18 '05, 08:57 AM

Re: Group comment

> thus[color=blue]
>
> Q'XXX'
> i=1
> i+=1
> print i
> print i+1
> 'XXX'[/color]

You may as well suggest /* and */, as they are far more well known, and
significantly more acceptable (in my opinion) than your syntax.
Considering that /* */ has not already been added to the language, I
doubt that an aribirary magical syntax for commenting code would be added.

- Josiah

**Bengt Richter** · Jul 18 '05, 08:57 AM

Re: Group comment

On Tue, 02 Mar 2004 15:12:03 -0800, Josiah Carlson <jcarlson@nospa m.uci.edu> wrote:
[color=blue][color=green]
>> thus
>>
>> Q'XXX'
>> i=1
>> i+=1
>> print i
>> print i+1
>> 'XXX'[/color]
>
>You may as well suggest /* and */, as they are far more well known, and
>significantl y more acceptable (in my opinion) than your syntax.
>Considering that /* */ has not already been added to the language, I
>doubt that an aribirary magical syntax for commenting code would be added.
>[/color]

/*
/* you missed the point */
*/

Regards,
Bengt Richter

**Josiah Carlson** · Jul 18 '05, 08:58 AM

Re: Group comment

>>You may as well suggest /* and */, as they are far more well known, and[color=blue][color=green]
>>significant ly more acceptable (in my opinion) than your syntax.
>>Considering that /* */ has not already been added to the language, I
>>doubt that an aribirary magical syntax for commenting code would be added.
>>[/color]
>
>
> /*
> /* you missed the point */
> */[/color]

I understood that nuance, and while your syntax allows nesting of
comments, it is still arbitrary and magical. May as well use an "if
False:" construct and gain the benefit of visual indentation, regardless
of an editor's syntax highlighting capability.

- Josiah

**Ben Finney** · Jul 18 '05, 08:58 AM

Re: Group comment

On Tue, 02 Mar 2004 17:40:27 -0800, Josiah Carlson wrote:[color=blue]
> May as well use an "if False:" construct and gain the benefit of
> visual indentation, regardless of an editor's syntax highlighting
> capability.[/color]

As well as losing any possible ambiguity about whether the code will be
executed. I like it.

--
\ "Truth would quickly cease to become stranger than fiction, |
`\ once we got as used to it." -- Henry L. Mencken |
_o__) |
Ben Finney <http://bignose.squidly .org/>

**Bob Ippolito** · Jul 18 '05, 08:58 AM

Re: Group comment

On 2004-03-02 21:30:36 -0500, Ben Finney
<bignose-hates-spam@and-benfinney-does-too.id.au> said:
[color=blue]
> On Tue, 02 Mar 2004 17:40:27 -0800, Josiah Carlson wrote:[color=green]
>> May as well use an "if False:" construct and gain the benefit of
>> visual indentation, regardless of an editor's syntax highlighting
>> capability.[/color]
>
> As well as losing any possible ambiguity about whether the code will be
> executed. I like it.[/color]

Some editors will even key in on this, like #if 0 in C.

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