<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><br>On 4 Feb 2015, at 16:40, Michael Homer <<a href="mailto:mwh@ecs.vuw.ac.nz">mwh@ecs.vuw.ac.nz</a>> wrote:<br><br><blockquote type="cite">As an aside here, people keep saying this, and it is not how Fortran<br>comments work. Column 6 is for continuation lines. It's a C in column<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">1 that indicates discarding the line.</blockquote><br><div>You are quite right. I’m so pleased that I had forgotten that!</div><div></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><br></div><div><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"> • at the end of a line, (but not at the end of a continuation that is continued on the following line).<br> Such comments attach to the first declaration or expression on that line.<br></blockquote>Is this the same as "may appear where a semicolon could, and attaches<br>to the preceding statement or declaration", or is it "may appear at<br>the end of the first physical line of a continuation-line sequence,<br>and attaches to the whole sequence”?</div></blockquote><br><div>I meant to say "(but not at the end of a statement or expression that is continued on the following line).</div><div>I did not take the time to formulate this precisely; it was an example of the <i>kind</i> of rule we might have, </div><div>rather than a well-thought-out proposal for a pacific rule.</div><div><br></div><div>I don’t think that either of your versions quite captures the idea.</div><div>“May appear where a semicolon could” is right, but my “attach to the first declaration or expression on that line” was an attempt to deal with the example</div><div><br></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><i>var x := 4<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>// should rename x to something meaningful</i></div><div><br></div><div>The comment attaches to the <i>var x </i>and not to the <i>4</i></div><div><br></div><div>Of course, one could come up with the opposite example:</div><div><br></div><div><i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>var corners := 4<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>// for a quadrilateral</i></div><div><br></div><div>where the comment is intended to attach to the 4. If this is important, then one could write</div><div><br></div><div><i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>var corners</i></div><div><i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>corners := 4 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> // for a quadrilateral</i></div><div><i><br></i></div><div>This would be easier if Grace had statements. </div><div><br></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Andrew</div><div><br></div></body></html>