Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83 (MC840302); site kuling.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!mcvax!enea!kuling!andersa From: andersa@kuling.UUCP (Anders Andersson) Newsgroups: net.unix Subject: Re: # comment character Message-ID: <764@kuling.UUCP> Date: Tue, 25-Jun-85 01:33:28 EDT Article-I.D.: kuling.764 Posted: Tue Jun 25 01:33:28 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 29-Jun-85 01:50:21 EDT References: <291@ucdavis.UUCP> Reply-To: andersa@kuling.UUCP (Anders Andersson) Distribution: net Organization: The Royal Inst. of Techn., Stockholm Lines: 14 In article <291@ucdavis.UUCP> ccrrick@ucdavis.UUCP (Rick Heli) writes: >Can anyone tell me why the # character is a comment in INTERACTIVE >mode in the shell? I mean, who goes around making comments that >will never be seen again while running the shell in interactive >mode? Well, what function should # have in interactive mode then? No function is also a kind of function. The idea is that things should work the same regardless of mode -- imagine the problems if commands, syntax etc. didn't behave the same when run from a file rather than being typed in interactively. The consequent behaviour makes both learning and debugging easy. Giving # a special "interactive" function would merely increase documentation size and human brain load, instead of functionality...