Comments

A comment in an EGL file is created in either of the following ways:

• Double right slashes (//) indicate that the subsequent characters are a comment, up to and including the end-of-line character

• A single or multiline comment is delimited by a right slash and asterisk at the start (/*) and by an asterisk and right slash at the end (*/); this form of comment is valid anywhere that a white-space character is valid

You may place a comment inside or outside of an executable statement, as in this example:

   /* the assignment e = f occurs if a = b or if c = d */
   if (a = b         // one comparison
     || /* OR; another comparison */ c = d)
     e = f;  
   end

EGL does not support embedded comments, so the following entries cause an error:

   /* this line starts a comment /* and
      this line ends the comment, */ 
      but this line is not inside a comment at all */  

The comment in the first two lines includes a second comment delimiter (/*). An error results only when EGL tries to interpret the third line as source code.

The following is valid:

   a = b;   /* this line starts a comment // and 
      this line ends the comment */   

The double right slashes (//) in the last example are themselves part of a larger comment.

Between the symbols #sql{ and }, the EGL comments described earlier are not valid. The following statements apply:

• An SQL comment begins with a double hyphen (--) at the beginning of a line or after white space and continues until the end of the line

• Comments are not available inside a string literal. A series of characters in that literal is interpreted as text even in these contexts:
  • A prepare statement

  • The defaultSelectCondition property of a record of type SQLRecord

Related concepts
EGL projects, packages, and files

Related reference
EGL source format
EGL statements