first steps in elisp

[Mark Piffer]

I am trying to write some helper functions which should ease documentation of C 
as per the method which my customers require (mostly repetition of parameters 
as Doxygen-enabled comments - I don't think that that's a good idea, but the 
customer wants it). I coudn't find a package that was primitive enough to help 
me with the parsing - the code is embedded C and quite non-standard with 
respect to compiler extensions. So I tried to walk the extra mile and code a 
little elisp for fun. Which things are especially bad or unusual concerning 
both, Lisp and emacs?

(defun ignore-multiline-comment (nlines)
  "assumes point is inside a C multiline comment /*. Advances
until end of comment */ or nlines becomes 0"
  (if (zerop nlines)
      nil
    (if (looking-at ".*?\\*/")
                (progn
                  (goto-char (match-end 0))
                  (ignore-line-comments nlines))
      (beginning-of-line 2)
      (ignore-multiline-comment (1- nlines)))))
 

(defun ignore-line-comments (nlines)
  "return the text starting at point as a list, going nlines lines down, 
stripped of 
all C comments (except pathological cases w/ string literals)"
  (if (zerop nlines)
      nil    
    (setq ml-e (if (looking-at "\\(.*?\\)/\\*") ;; test on /* comment
                                 (match-end 1)
                               nil))
    (setq sl-e (if (looking-at "\\(.*?\\)//") ;; test on // comment
                                  (match-end 1)
                               nil))
    (if (or sl-e ml-e) ;; any comment on line?
                (if (and ml-e (or (not sl-e) (< ml-e sl-e)))  ;; is /* the only 
or first comment?
                    (progn
                      (setq r (buffer-substring-no-properties (point) ml-e))
                      (goto-char ml-e)
                      (cons r (ignore-multiline-comment nlines)))
                 (setq r (buffer-substring-no-properties (point) sl-e))
                  (beginning-of-line 2)
                  (cons r (ignore-line-comments (1- nlines))))
      (looking-at ".*$")
      (setq r (buffer-substring-no-properties (car (match-data)) (cadr 
(match-data))) )
      (beginning-of-line 2)
      (cons r (ignore-line-comments (1- nlines))))))