Block Comments in VHDL

[J. T.]

Does anyone know how to do a block comment in VHDL???
I recently have been asked this question and did not know
the answer. All my comments have been:

-- This is a comment
-- I hope you get the drift

I would like to
/*
This is a comment
I hope you get the drift
*/

Of course /* ... */ does not work, but do you know what will???

Thanks,
John Thweatt

[Bert Molenkamp]

There is nothing in VHDL that support 'block comment'. As stated in
the LRM 1076-1987

"13.8 Comments
A comment starts with two adjacent hyphens
and extends up to the end of the line."

Bert Molenkamp
Dept. of Computer Science
University of Twente
PO Box 217
7500 AE Enschede
the Netherlands
email: mole...@cs.utwente.nl

[Daniel S. Barclay]

From: mole...@cs.utwente.nl (Bert Molenkamp)

> thw...@rtsg.mot.com (J. T.) writes:
> > Does anyone know how to do a block comment in VHDL???
> > I recently have been asked this question and did not know
> > the answer. All my comments have been:
> >
> > -- This is a comment
> > -- I hope you get the drift
> >
> > I would like to
> > /*
> > This is a comment
> > I hope you get the drift
> > */
> >
> > Of course /* ... */ does not work, but do you know what will???
>
> There is nothing in VHDL that support 'block comment'. As stated in
> the LRM 1076-1987
>
> "13.8 Comments
> A comment starts with two adjacent hyphens
> and extends up to the end of the line."

VHDL comments come from Ada, for which it was apparently decided that the
begin-end style of comments was too error-prone.

(I just look in my Ada Rationale, but couldn't find anything on comments.)

Daniel

--
Daniel S. Barclay Compass Design Automation, Inc. (& dan...@compass-da.com ?)
dan...@clsi.com Suite 101, 5457 Twin Knolls Road Columbia, MD 21045 USA
"They listen hard, and act like they care.
How can they be so completely unaware
Of the truth? The answer is always denied me
So I introduce 'em to the killer inside me." - MC 900 Ft. Jesus

[COMPASS/Columbia Personnel]

You could use a preprocessor (like cpp) to use this style of comments.
But it would then make your VHDL nonportable.