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PHP: Comments - Manual

J. Prettyman

11 years ago

Notes can come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. They vary, and their uses are completely up to the person writing the code. However, I try to keep things consistent in my code that way it's easy for the next person to read. So something like this might help...

<?php?>

M Spreij

20 years ago

A nice way to toggle the commenting of blocks of code can be done by mixing the two comment styles:
<?php
if ($foo) {
echo
$bar;
}
sort($morecode);
?>

Now by taking out one / on the first line..

<?php
sort($morecode);
?>
..the block is suddenly commented out.


This works because a /* .. */ overrides //. You can even "flip" two blocks, like this:
<?php
if ($foo) {
echo
$bar;
}
?>
vs
<?php
if ($bar) {
echo
$foo;
}
?>
aetonsi

2 years ago

As of php 8, single line comments starting exactly with "#[" have a special meaning: they are treated as "attributes", and they must respect the expected syntax. See: https://www.php.net/manual/en/language.attributes.php

So the following code throws an error in php 8+, while it is perfectly valid in php <8:


<?php
#[~~my super cool comment~~~]
?>

To be safe, just always use "//" comments instead of "#". Maybe in the future there will be other special meanings for the "#" comments, who knows.
magnesium dot oxide dot play+php at gmail dot com

11 years ago

It is worth mentioning that, HTML comments have no meaning in PHP parser. So,

<!-- comment


<?php echo some_function(); ?>
-->

WILL execute some_function() and echo result inside HTML comment.

hcderaad at wanadoo dot nl

19 years ago

Comments in PHP can be used for several purposes, a very interesting one being that you can generate API documentation directly from them by using PHPDocumentor (http://www.phpdoc.org/).

Therefor one has to use a JavaDoc-like comment syntax (conforms to the DocBook DTD), example:


<?php
?>
Some basic html-like formatting is supported with this (ie <br> tags) to create something of a layout.
J Lee

18 years ago

MSpreij (8-May-2005) says /* .. */ overrides //
Anonymous (26-Jan-2006) says // overrides /* .. */

Actually, both are correct. Once a comment is opened, *everything* is ignored until the end of the comment (or the end of the php block) is reached.

Thus, if a comment is opened with:


// then /* and */ are "overridden" until after end-of-line
/* then // is "overridden" until after */
Steve

20 years ago

Be careful when commenting out regular expressions.

E.g. the following causes a parser error.

I do prefer using # as regexp delimiter anyway so it won't hurt me ;-)

<?php ');

*/

?>

theblazingangel at aol dot com

17 years ago

it's perhaps not obvious to some, but the following code will cause a parse error! the ?> in //?> is not treated as commented text, this is a result of having to handle code on one line such as <?php echo 'something'; ?>

<?php
if(1==1)
{
?>
}
?>

i discovered this "anomally" when i commented out a line of code containing a regex which itself contained ?>, with the // style comment.


e.g. //preg_match('/^(?>c|b)at$/', 'cat', $matches);
will cause an error while commented! using /**/ style comments provides a solution. i don't know about # style comments, i don't ever personally use them.
jballard at natoga dot com

14 years ago

Comments do NOT take up processing power.

So, for all the people who argue that comments are undesired because they take up processing power now have no reason to comment ;)

<?phpecho microtime(), "<br />"; echo microtime(), "<br />"; echo microtime(), "<br />"; echo microtime(), "<br />"; ?>


They take up about the same amount of time (about meaning on a repeated testing, sometimes the difference between the control and the test was negative and sometimes positive).
Wolfsbay at ya dot ru

14 years ago

If you are using editor with code highlight, it’s much easier to notice error like /* */ */.

fun at nybbles dot com

18 years ago

a trick I have used in all languages to temporarily block out large sections (usually for test/debug/new-feature purposes), is to set (or define) a var at the top, and use that to conditionally comment the blocks; an added benefit over if(0) (samuli's comment from nov'05) is that u can have several versions or tests running at once, and u dont require cleanup later if u want to keep the blocks in: just reset the var.

personally, I use this more to conditionally include code for new feature testing, than to block it out,,,, but hey, to each their own :)

this is also the only safe way I know of to easily nest comments in any language, and great for multi-file use, if the conditional variables are placed in an include :)

for example, placed at top of file:

<?php $ver3 = TRUE;
$debug2 = FALSE;
?>

and then deeper inside the file:

<?php if ($ver3) {
print(
"This code is included since we are testing version 3");
}
?>


<?php if ($debug2) {
print(
"This code is 'commented' out");
}
?>

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