Comments
Two kinds of comments can appear in an EQUEL program: EQUEL comments and host language comments. Use the /* and */ characters to delimit EQUEL comments. These characters must appear on lines beginning with the ## sign. For example:
## /* Update name and salary*/
## append to employee (ename = empnam, esal = esal*.1)
The preprocessor strips EQUEL comments out of the program that appear on lines beginning with the ## sign. These comments do not appear in the output file.
The capitol C delimits Fortran host language comments. These comments must start on a separate line. For example:
## message "No permission . . ."
C No user access
The preprocessor treats host language comments that appear on lines that do not begin with the ## sign as host code and passes them through to the output file unchanged. Therefore, if you want source code comments in the preprocessor output, enter them as Fortran comments on lines that are not EQUEL lines.
The following restrictions apply to any EQUEL or Fortran comments in an EQUEL/Fortran program:
• If anything other than ## appears in the first two positions of a line of EQUEL source, the precompiler treats the line as host code and ignores it. The only exception to this is a string-continuation line. See
String Literals.
• Comments cannot appear in string constants. If this occurs, the preprocessor interprets the intended comment as part of the string constant.
• In general, EQUEL comments can be put in EQUEL statements wherever a space can legally occur. However, comments cannot appear between two words that are reserved when they appear together, such as declare cursor. See the list of EQUEL reserved words in the QUEL Reference Guide.
VMS: In VMS, you can also use the ! character instead of C to delimit Fortran host language comment which extends to the end of the line. It can appear on a line beginning with the ## sign. For example:
## message "No permission . . ." !No user access
Windows: In Windows, you can also use the ! character instead of C or c to delimit Fortran host language comment that extends to the end of the line. It can appear on a line beginning with the ## sign. For example:
## message "No permission . . ." !No user access
