Start comments in PHP: /* or /**

Dave · 09-03-2008, 10:07 AM

My PHP IDE does not seem to recognize /** as the beginning of PHP comments. It does recognize /* as the beginning, however.

When I see other's code, I often see /** used to begin PHP comments.

Question: Is the /* comment */ method pretty much accepted everywhere?

Thanks,
Dave

sketchMedia · 09-03-2008, 10:51 AM

I think /** is what PHPDoc looks for before it parses comments.

What is your IDE just out of interest, it sounds like there syntax matching algo is incorrect.

Ross · 09-03-2008, 12:19 PM

In Java, Javadoc (the equivalent of PHPdoc) uses /** */ comments for Javadoc comments and /* */ for plain comments.

I tend to use a /** */ when doing a multiline comment, a /* */ on an line comment detailing a section of code and a // when detailing the next few lines.

For example:

PHP Code:


			
/**
 * Page-level docblock
 */

/* Editing the file */

// Open, write and close
$f = fopen('file.html', 'w');
fwrite($f, 'tets');
fclose($f);

zspencer · 09-04-2008, 12:36 PM

That is interesting. I use gedit for Linux and it recognizes anything starting with /* as a comment. Thus /***** counts as a comment, and *****/ counts as a closing comment.

Village Idiot · 09-04-2008, 07:23 PM

What IDE do you use? Because PHP should ignore anything between the "/*" and "*/" tags regardless of what they are.

Jim · 09-04-2008, 08:14 PM

Here is an example:

/**
* Applies the main template to the page
*
* @param string $file
* @param bool $first
*/

If the PHP parser spots /** it starts reading the whole comment block for later (possible) usage. So /** is not just for yourself, but it's actually used in parsetime (i will explain later). When using /* it will be just ignored.

The good thing about /** is for combinating /** information with the Reflection API, you can creating your own doc system.

Also very nice is using it in Zend Studio. When you are working on some others code, some sort of API. You can see much information about a function without looking in the code of the API writher, because ZS shows you the information from /** when starting the function.

You have to check it out to be convinced :)

sketchMedia · 09-04-2008, 08:31 PM

This is a PHPDoc block comment, therefore its for the PHPDoc parser not PHP parser itself and as VI correctly said:

Quote:

PHP should ignore anything between the "/*" and "*/" tags regardless of what they are.

Im guessing that Zend Studio (and indeed eclipse) reads PHPDoc comments and uses them to provide more comprehensive code completion hints.

The double '*' is there for the PHPDoc parser, as far as i know.

Dave · 09-07-2008, 12:40 PM

That is interesting, and clears up the /* vs. /** "issue" up for me very well. Thank you!

Dave

Jim · 09-08-2008, 07:58 PM

Additional to my first post, it might be intressting to note that you can actually read the /** comments on runtime in PHP yourself :)

boycoda · 09-09-2008, 08:46 AM

I used # or ## myself. Works just as good.

sketchMedia · 09-09-2008, 06:39 PM

I dont use '#' because it looks like the she-bang line when running PHP on the CLI:

shell Code:

#!/usr/bin/php -q

Ross · 09-09-2008, 06:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sketchMedia

I dont use '#' because it looks like the she-bang line when running PHP on the CLI:

shell Code:

#!/usr/bin/php -q

I don't use hash because it just looks ugly to me

sketchMedia · 09-10-2008, 10:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by redSHIFT

I don't use hash because it just looks ugly to me

That too

Kalle · 09-11-2008, 07:53 AM

PERL style comments should be terminated, just like asp_tags =P

boycoda · 09-11-2008, 09:34 AM

asp itself should be terminated. All hail php and that #

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