Re: Syntax error using (*comments*)
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg23967] Re: Syntax error using (*comments*)
- From: Grischa Stegemann <Stegemann at Physik.TU-Berlin.DE>
- Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2000 03:00:48 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <8icco2$9om@smc.vnet.net> <200006161237.HAA30775@monon.wolfram.com>
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
"P.J. Hinton" wrote:
> > (It seems that my first posting didn't made it through to other
> > news-servers, thus I have to try it again. Sorry if this will lead
> > to an annoying double-posting.)
>
> This newsgroup is moderated, so it may take a few days for the
> article appear pending approval by the moderator.
I know that. But in fact, this newsgroup was not marked as moderated
on our news-server. Therefore I assume my first posting wasn't even
sent to the moderator.
> > In[1]:= 4+3 (*guess what*)
> > Out[1]= 4+3 Null
> >
> > In[2]:= 4+3 (*9, more or less*)
> > Out[2]= Syntax::"sntxf": "(*" cannot be followed by "9, more or
> > less*)"
>
> Sounds as if your cells may have invisible characters or malformed
> box structures that affect the notebook's evaluation. Can you try
> the following for me?
> [copy cell expressions]
Here are the corresponding cell expressions (created on the
misbehaving Linux system):
---------------
Cell[BoxData[
RowBox[{"4", "+", "3", " ",
RowBox[{"(*",
RowBox[{"guess", " ", "what"}], "*)"}]}]], "Input",
CellLabel->"In[1]:="]
---------------
Cell[BoxData[
RowBox[{"4", "+", "3", " ",
RowBox[{"(*",
RowBox[{"9", ",",
RowBox[{"more", " ", "or", " ", "less"}]}], "*)"}]}]],
"Input",
CellLabel->"In[2]:="]
---------------
These look pretty sane to me. But the following is really weird in my
opinion. I compared these expressions to the ones produced on the
Solaris system, they look like this:
---------------
Cell[BoxData[
RowBox[{
RowBox[{"4", "+", "3"}], " ",
RowBox[{"(*",
RowBox[{"guess", " ", "what"}], "*)"}]}]], "Input",
CellLabel->"In[1]:="]
---------------
I can count the brackets as often as I like but there are no closing
brackets for the additional RowBox. Nevertheless, as I said before,
everything works fine here.
In addition I made new notebooks on each system and compared the
sources:
Linux system:
Notebook[{
Cell[BoxData[
\(4 + 3\ (*guess\ what*) \)], "Input"],
Cell[BoxData[
\(4 + 3\ (*9, \ more\ or\ less*) \)], "Input"]
}, ...]
Solaris system:
Notebook[{
Cell[BoxData[
\(\(4 + 3\ (*guess\ what*) \)\)], "Input"],
Cell[BoxData[
\(\(4 + 3\ (*9, \ more\ or\ less*) \)\)], "Input"]
}, ...]
The latter seems to have an extra (but redundant?) pair of \(...\).
OK, that should be enough. Thanks in advance for your help,
--
Grischa Stegemann
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Grischa Stegemann Technische Universitaet Berlin
email: Stegemann at physik.tu-berlin.de
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