"Dale S. Johnson": # Comment characters in templates

Folks,

Dale Johnson from MERIT brings up the issue of allowing "#" style
comments in objects between attributes. From an implementation point
of view this is *very* simple. Any major objections? The database sw
would simply ignore them. Note that they would have to be on a line by
themselves, NOT inside an attribute. An example would be:

person:      Marten Terpstra
address:     RIPE Network Coordination Centre (NCC)
address:     PRIDE Project
address:     Kruislaan 409
address:     NL-1098 SJ Amsterdam
address:     Netherlands
# This is some comment
phone:       +31 20 592 5064
fax-no:      +31 20 592 5090
e-mail:      Marten.Terpstra at ripe.net
nic-hdl:     MT2
# And this as well
notify:      marten at ripe.net
changed:     marten at ripe.net 941128
source:      RIPE

which would be processed normally, ie the # lines ignored. They would
not end up in the database of course.

Any major showstoppers here?

-Marten

------- Forwarded Message

Date:     Mon, 28 Nov 1994 14:49:50 -0500
From:     "Dale S. Johnson" <dsj at merit.edu>
To:       Marten at ripe.net
cc:       Tony.Bates at ripe.net
Subject:  # Comment characters in templates

Marten,

   What do you think of the idea of allowing #Comments in templates that
are processed by auto-dbm?  I bring this up privately because it seems
like something that must have caused some discussion before if it isn't
all ready implemented.  The arguments are the same as for commenting
programs:  objects (especially aut-num objects) can be huge and complex
now.  Even if the comments aren't preserved in the storage and output
formats, it would make lots of sense for people to keep comments in their
original versions on their own machines, and not have to sed these out
before they send them to auto-dbm.

  Is there all ready a history on this question?  Or could it be done
without discussion?  Or if it needs discussion, what list would be
appropriate?

--Dale

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