Comments & Documentation

C3 uses three distinct comment types:

1. The normal // line comment, which is terminated at the end of the line.
2. The classic /* ... */ C style comment, but unlike in C they are allowed to nest.
3. Documentation comments /** ... **/ the text within these comments will be parsed as documentation and optional contracts on the following code.

Documentation

Documentation comments start with /** and must be terminated using */. Note that any number of * may follow /** and any number of stars may preceed */. Any space and * in the beginning of each line will be ignored.

Here is an example:

/**
 * Here are som docs.
 * @param foo The number of foos.
 * @required foo > 4
 * @deprecated
 * @mycustom 2
 **/
void bar(int foo)
{
    io::printf("%d", foo);
}

In the example above, the following is parsed as description: “Here are the docs.”, then there is a description associated with the foo parameter: “The number of foos”.

On top of that there are two annotations for the compiler: @required foo > 4 which tells the compiler and a user of the function that a precondition is that foo must be greater than 4. It is also marked as @deprecated, which can be used to display warnings.

Finally, a custom annotation, “@mycustom” is added. The compiler is free to silently ignore such annotations, but can optionally emit warnings for them, it is otherwise ignored.

Available annotations

Name	format
@param	@param <param> <description>
@return	@return <description>
@return!	@return! <fault1>, <fault2>, ...
@fails	@fails <description>
@deprecated	@deprecated <optional description>
@require	@require <expr1>, <expr2>, ...
@ensure	@ensure <expre1>, <expr2>, ...
@pure	@pure

See contracts for information regarding @require, @ensure, @const, @pure, @checked.