How to comment out blocks of code in shell scripts
Normally, to comment out lines in a shell script, one inserts a pound
sign at the beginning of the line. That's fine, but that can be a lot
of work if there are several lines to be commented out. Another way is
to use a variation on the here-document to use indicate a beginning and
end of commented-out code, similar to C's /** and **/.
<![CDATA[
#!/bin/bash
:<< COMMENTBLOCK
All the lines within this block are commented out,
that is, the shell won't try to execute them even
though they don't have a # in front of them.
Pretty cool, huh!
COMMENTBLOCK
echo "hello world"
]]>
When you run this script, you'll just get 'hello world', everything within the
COMMENTBLOCK words will be ignored.
09/21/2004