Commenting the code
Comments are regions of text that thinBasic interpreter will ignore but may contain information that is useful to the programmer.
Commenting source code is a good practice for every programmer. Comments serve as a sort of in-code documentation.
For this reasons thinBasic has implemented different ways in which programmer can add comments into thinBasic scripts:
REM keyword is the most known and classic Basic way to add comment. For example
REM ------------------------------------------------ REM This is the start of the main program REM ------------------------------------------------ |
•classic Basic REM keyword
•single quote '
•special single quote cases
•c style block comments
•c++ style comment
REM keyword
REM keyword is the most known and classic Basic way to add comment. For example
REM ------------------------------------------------
REM This is the start of the main program
REM ------------------------------------------------
Single quotation mark (')
Single quotation mark (') is another classical Basic way to add remarks. Example:
'------------------------------------------------
' This is the start of the main program
'------------------------------------------------
It it a more flexible way because it allows to add remarks on a line following another statement. For example
DIM Msg AS STRING '---This variable will be used ...
C Like remarks
thinBasic allows usage of C-Like comments using /* ... */ pairs. They can be used as a block or can be used on a line following another statement. Examples:
/*
------------------------------------------------
This is the start of the main program
------------------------------------------------
*/
DIM Msg AS STRING /* This variable will be used ... */
C++ Like remarks
thinBasic allows usage of C++ single line comment using //
Examples:
// This is the start of the main program
DIM Msg AS STRING // This variable will be used
Special single quotation mark (') remarks
There are special single quotation mark (') remarks followed by [] that are interpreted by thinAir (thinBasic IDE) and thinDebug (thinBasic debugger) in a special way and they can be used to classify remarks in different types.
For example, using special single quotation mark like the following:
'[] <enter your annotation here>
'[!] <pay attention note: important>
'[o] <this part needs to be optimized>
'[t] <this part needs to be tested>
'[todo] <Something to do here>
'[breakpoint] <Any note here. Breakpoint will be set to line following this statement>
will be interpreted and identified by the thinAir in the following way permitting a very flexible way to keep your code organized:
Finally another special single line quotation mark is the following:
'[book] <Bookmark text>
It allows to add code bookmarks for quick jump using F2 or Shift+F2 keyboard shortcuts.