Comments

 

C++

Compiler support

Freestanding and hosted

Language

Standard library

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Named requirements

Feature test macros (C++20)

Language support library

Concepts library (C++20)

Diagnostics library

Memory management library

Metaprogramming library (C++11)

General utilities library

Containers library

Iterators library

Ranges library (C++20)

Algorithms library

Strings library

Text processing library

Numerics library

Date and time library

Input/output library

Filesystem library (C++17)

Concurrency support library (C++11)

Execution control library (C++26)

Technical specifications

Symbols index

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C++ language

General topics
Preprocessor Comments	Keywords Escape sequences
Flow control
Conditional execution statements
if	switch
Iteration statements (loops)
for range-for (C++11)	while do-while
Jump statements
continue - break	goto - return
Functions
Function declaration
Lambda function expression
inline specifier
Dynamic exception specifications (until C++17*)
noexcept specifier (C++11)
Exceptions
throw-expression try block	catch handler
Namespaces
Namespace declaration	Namespace aliases
Types
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Specifiers
const/volatile decltype (C++11) auto (C++11)	constexpr (C++11) consteval (C++20) constinit (C++20)
Storage duration specifiers
Initialization
Default-initialization Value-initialization Zero-initialization Copy-initialization Direct-initialization	Aggregate initialization List-initialization (C++11)   Constant initialization Reference initialization

Expressions
Value categories Order of evaluation	Operators Operator precedence
Alternative representations
Literals
Boolean - Integer - Floating-point
Character - String - nullptr (C++11)
User-defined (C++11)
Utilities
Attributes (C++11)
Types
typedef declaration
Type alias declaration (C++11)
Casts
Implicit conversions static_cast const_cast	Explicit conversions dynamic_cast reinterpret_cast
Memory allocation
new expression	delete expression
Classes
Class declaration Constructors this pointer	Access specifiers friend specifier
Class-specific function properties
Virtual function override specifier (C++11)   final specifier (C++11)	explicit (C++11) static
Special member functions
Default constructor Copy constructor Move constructor (C++11)	Copy assignment Move assignment (C++11) Destructor
Templates
Class template Function template	Template specialization Parameter packs (C++11)
Miscellaneous
Inline assembly	History of C++

 

Basic Concepts

Comments

ASCII

Punctuation

Names and identifiers

Types

Fundamental types

Objects

Scope

Object lifetime

Storage duration and linkage

Definitions and ODR

Name lookup

Qualified name lookup

Unqualified name lookup

The as-if rule

Undefined behavior

Memory model

Multi-threaded executions and data races (C++11)

Character sets and encodings

Phases of translation

The main function

Modules (C++20)

Contracts (C++26)

 

Comments serve as a sort of in-code documentation. When inserted into a program, they are effectively ignored by the compiler; they are solely intended to be used as notes by the humans that read source code. Although specific documentation is not part of the C++ standard, several utilities exist that parse comments with different documentation formats.

Syntax

/* comment */	(1)
/ comment	(2)

1) Often known as "C-style" or "multi-line" comments.

2) Often known as "C++-style" or "single-line" comments.

All comments are removed from the program at translation phase 3 by replacing each comment with a single whitespace character.

C-style

C-style comments are usually used to comment large blocks of text, however, they can be used to comment single lines. To insert a C-style comment, simply surround text with /* and */; this will cause the contents of the comment to be ignored by the compiler. Although it is not part of the C++ standard, /** and */ are often used to indicate documentation blocks; this is legal because the second asterisk is simply treated as part of the comment. C-style comments cannot be nested.

C++-style

C++-style comments are usually used to comment single lines, however, multiple C++-style comments can be placed together to form multi-line comments. C++-style comments tell the compiler to ignore all content between / and a new line.

Notes

Because comments are removed before the preprocessor stage, a macro cannot be used to form a comment and an unterminated C-style comment doesn't spill over from an #include'd file.

Besides commenting out, other mechanisms used for source code exclusion are

#if 0
    std::cout << "this will not be executed or even compiled\n";
#endif

and

if (false)
{
    std::cout << "this will not be executed\n";
}

Example

Run this code

#include <iostream>
 
/* C-style comments can contain
multiple lines */
/* or just one */
 
/**************
 *  you can insert any *, but
 *  you can't make comments nested
 */
 
/ C++-style comments can comment one line
 
/ or, they can
/ be strung together
 
int main()
{
    / comments are removed before preprocessing,
    / so ABC is "1", not "1/2134", and "1 hello world"
    / will be printed
#define ABC 1/2134
    std::cout << ABC << " hello world\n";
 
    / The below code won't be run
    / return 1;
 
    / The below code will be run
    return 0;
}

Output:

1 hello world

See also

C documentation for comment

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