For TODO: Syntax-tables - allow a \ at EOL to be part of line comment.

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hi, Emacs!

There are many languages which have line comments

   "THE COMMENT EXTENDS TO THE END OF THE LINE!!"
   
and also allow a line to be continued on to the next line

   "A BACKSLASH AT THE END OF A LINE CONTINUES IT ONTO THE NEXT LINE!!".

However, few of these languages' manuals state clearly which rule takes
precedence when a \ is the last character of such a comment; it varies
from language to language.  For example, in C and C++,

   // A line comment can be escaped to \
   carry on on the next line.

But in shell script:

   # This line is a comment, but \
   echo this line is not. >&2

, or Emacs Lisp:

   ;; A comment line's EOL \
   (message "cannot be escaped.")

.  Although this isn't and never will be a showstopper, it's one of
these irritating things which it would do no harm to resolve.  I
therefore propose adding it to ..../etc/TODO:



2008-01-04  acm  <address@hidden>

        * TODO: A note that Syntax tables should be enhanced so that on a
        line comment, \ at EOL needn't continue the comment onto next line.



*** TODO~       2007-12-31 13:25:48.000000000 +0000
--- TODO        2008-01-04 20:39:13.617142976 +0000
***************
*** 243,248 ****
--- 243,249 ----
        by elisp code.  Thus a char could both close a string and open a comment
        at the same time and do it in a context-sensitive way.
  *** ability to add mode-specific data to the partial-parse-state.
+ *** a way to say a `\' at the end of a line comment doesn't escape the NL.
  
  ** Add a way to convert a keyboard macro to equivalent Lisp code.
  


-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).