Use of "!" to comment out lines in tables; comments stripped by util h

• Article Type: General
• Product: Aleph
• Product Version: 18.01

Description:
You find that certain table lines which are commented out / "banged" out / begin with an exclamation mark ("!") are causing problems.

Or, you find that util h/2 or util h/3 strips the comments from the table.

Resolution:
Is the line below this line a continuation of this line? Does *it* begin with an "!"? Even if there is no line break between the first and the second line -- so that it's all one big line --, the "!" will cover only 99 characters. The system will treat characters 100-up as data. Though one *could* have 20 characters on a continued line without any problem, the simplest rule is this: In ALEPH tables always begin each line which you want to be a comment with "!" (and end each such line with a line break <ENTER>).

Note: Tables (such as aleph_start, www_server.conf, prof_library, etc.) which are source-d into scripts/procedures need to use the pound-sign as the comment character rather than the exclamation mark.

Comments immediately following the header can be stripped by the util h header synchronization. (The utility strips out all commented lines preceding the first line of actual data in the table.)

Comments can be interspersed with the actual, active lines, or they can be placed at the *end* of the table.