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From: PerlFAQ Server on 2 May 2010 12:00
This is an excerpt from the latest version perlfaq7.pod, which
comes with the standard Perl distribution. These postings aim to
reduce the number of repeated questions as well as allow the community
to review and update the answers. The latest version of the complete
perlfaq is at http://faq.perl.org .

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7.27: How can I comment out a large block of Perl code?

(contributed by brian d foy)

The quick-and-dirty way to comment out more than one line of Perl is to
surround those lines with Pod directives. You have to put these
directives at the beginning of the line and somewhere where Perl expects
a new statement (so not in the middle of statements like the #
comments). You end the comment with "=cut", ending the Pod section:

=pod

my $object = NotGonnaHappen->new();

ignored_sub();

$wont_be_assigned = 37;

=cut

The quick-and-dirty method only works well when you don't plan to leave
the commented code in the source. If a Pod parser comes along, you're
multiline comment is going to show up in the Pod translation. A better
way hides it from Pod parsers as well.

The "=begin" directive can mark a section for a particular purpose. If
the Pod parser doesn't want to handle it, it just ignores it. Label the
comments with "comment". End the comment using "=end" with the same
label. You still need the "=cut" to go back to Perl code from the Pod
comment:

=begin comment

my $object = NotGonnaHappen->new();

ignored_sub();

$wont_be_assigned = 37;

=end comment

=cut

For more information on Pod, check out perlpod and perlpodspec.



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