comment-dwim and comment-style

In my previous post I mentioned that if you use Emacs and you’re editing Erlang source code you can easily comment whole marked region by invoking M-; to which by default bound interactive Lisp function comment-dwim. This works in different modes and it’s very handy especially if your language of choice has no multiline comments.

So far so good, but I must admit sometimes I get the blues when I comment some nested code blocks with M-; keystrokes. Well, maybe I’m blowing things out of proportion about my sadness, but in any case recently I came across really nice small blog post called comment-style and since then I’m happy with comments produced in nested blocks. Let’s see why.

When you comment marked regions in Emacs buffer with M-; the comment-style variable defines the way regions are commented. Default value is plain.

Buffer with Python code before commenting:

def binsearch(seq, key, start, end): if end < start: return -1 mid = (start + end) / 2 if key == seq[mid]: return mid if key < seq[mid]: return binsearch(seq, key, start, mid-1) if key > seq[mid]: return binsearch(seq, key, start+1, end)

Buffer with Python code after commenting:

def binsearch(seq, key, start, end): if end < start: return -1 mid = (start + end) / 2 # if key == seq[mid]:
# return mid
 if key < seq[mid]: return binsearch(seq, key, start, mid-1) if key > seq[mid]: return binsearch(seq, key, start+1, end)

As you see visually elements of commented block are not on the same line.

Example with Erlang code before commenting (somewhat far-fetched example though our main concern are comments, not code here):

all(Pred, [Hd|Tail]) -> case Pred(Hd) of true -> all(Pred, Tail); false -> io:format("Hd = ~p~n", [Hd]), true, false end;
all(Pred, []) when is_function(Pred, 1) -> true.

After commenting:

all(Pred, [Hd|Tail]) -> case Pred(Hd) of true -> all(Pred, Tail); false -> %% io:format("Hd = ~p~n", [Hd]),
%% true,
 false end;
all(Pred, []) when is_function(Pred, 1) -> true.

So the visual issue with comments is the same.

After reading foregoing blog post about comment-style I’ve added this line to my .emacs:

(setq comment-style 'indent)

Easy as pie and which means (taken from Emacs help): ” …`comment-start’ markers should not be put at the left margin but at the current indentation of the region to comment.”

After that addition foregoing commented block in Python mode will look like:

def binsearch(seq, key, start, end): if end < start: return -1 mid = (start + end) / 2 # if key == seq[mid]:
 # return mid
 if key < seq[mid]: return binsearch(seq, key, start, mid-1) if key > seq[mid]: return binsearch(seq, key, start+1, end)

in Erlang mode:

all(Pred, [Hd|Tail]) -> case Pred(Hd) of true -> all(Pred, Tail); false -> %% io:format("Hd = ~p~n", [Hd]),
 %% true,
 false end;
all(Pred, []) when is_function(Pred, 1) -> true.

Now I am happy. Thank you, Edward for the tip.