Comments
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  • Comment your code - what it does, not how, unless it is not obvious from the code itself.
  • Every phrase in the comments and documentation should start with a capital letter and end with a dot and 2 spaces. Rationale: GNU Coding Standards (the Emacs sentence commands will work).
  • Documentation in javadoc/doc++ style: /** */, /// Example:
    /**
     * Search a string in a buffer.
     *
     * @param buffer the buffer in which to search.
     * @param string the string to look for.
     * @return the index of the first occurrence.
     */
    int findString(Buffer& buffer, String& string);
                
    Rationale: This allows the automatic generation of HTML documentation for the interface using doc++.
  • Comment everything in headers. Rationale: This is where the interface is, and where people usually look for help.
  • Leave two empty lines between functions in the *.cc files. Rationale: It makes it clearer where the body of a function starts/ends.
  • Mark every bug and/or potential problem in the code with a comment starting with `FIXME: '. For instance: // FIXME: Parsing info not available. Rationale: This makes it very easy to locate such problems with tools like grep.
  • Comment large amounts of code with:
    #if 0
    #endif
                  

    Rationale: This avoids the comment inside comment errors at compile time if the code that you're commenting out contains other comments.

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