SQL syntax color does not support double commenting

Jan N. Pedersen · Mar 8, 2023, 1:53 PM

I have comments in my SQL like /* --- comment ---*/ but I also sometimes comment out blocks of script like -

/*
/*--- comment ---*/
SELECT . . .
*/

The above SQL is shown by syntax coloring as active.
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moderator added code markdown around text; please don’t forget to use the </> button to mark example text as “code” so that characters don’t get changed by the forum

PeterJones · Mar 8, 2023, 2:17 PM

@Jan-N-Pedersen ,

Notepad++ uses a library called “Scintilla” for the syntax highlighting. After discovering that SQL does indeed allow nested comments , I just went and verified that the Scintilla library that we use does not correctly parse nested comments.

It cannot be fixed in Notepad++ until it is fixed in Scintilla. I have put in a bug report with Scintilla , but there’s no guarantee they will fix it. If they do, then it may be a few Notepad++ versions before N++ has updated to the newest Scintilla.

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PeterJones · Mar 8, 2023, 10:38 PM

It cannot be fixed in Notepad++ until it is fixed in Scintilla. I have put in a bug report with Scintilla ,

It turns out that Scintilla/Lexilla has a separate lexer for MS-SQL compared to the other SQL variants. In SciTE, if I enable that lexer, it handles the nested comments okay. So it’s not a bug, it’s that Notepad++ has chosen to always use the standard-SQL lexer.

Which means, if you are willing to install the PythonScript plugin, I could give you a script (maybe tomorrow) that would enable the MS-SQL lexer for you, and switch from SQL to MS-SQL on your SQL files. So if you are interested and willing to install that plugin, let me know.