Necessity of Commenting
Commenting is an essential part of programming because it helps to make the code more understandable and maintainable. Here are some reasons why commenting is important:
- Documenting code: Comments provide an opportunity to document what the code is doing and why it is doing it. This helps other developers (including your future self) to understand the codebase more easily and quickly.
- Adding context: Comments can provide additional context and information that is not immediately obvious from the code. This can include information about the purpose of a function or module, assumptions made by the code, or reasons for particular design choices.
- Debugging: Comments can be useful for debugging, especially when dealing with complex or difficult-to-understand code. By adding comments to your code, you can help yourself and others to more easily identify problems and understand what is going wrong.
- Collaboration: When working on a project with multiple developers, comments can help to facilitate communication and collaboration. By commenting on your code, you can make it easier for others to work with your code and contribute to the project.
Overall, commenting is an important practice for creating high-quality, maintainable code. By taking the time to add comments to your code, you can make it easier to understand, debug, and collaborate on.
Create Multiline Comments in Python
In Python, multiline comments can be created using triple quotes (''' or """) at the beginning and end of the comment block. Here’s an example
'''
This is a multiline comment.
It can span multiple lines.
'''
"""
This is also a multiline comment.
It can also span multiple lines.
"""
It’s worth noting that while these comments will not be executed by the interpreter, they will still be stored in memory and take up space in your code. For this reason, it’s generally best to use single-line comments (using the ‘#‘ character) for brief comments and multiline comments sparingly for longer explanations or documentation.
Create Single Line Comment
In Python, single-line comments can be created using the ‘#‘ character. Anything after the ‘#‘ on a line will be ignored by the interpreter. Here’s an example:
# This is a single-line comment
print("Hello, World!") # This is another single-line comment
In the above example, the first line is a single-line comment, and the second line contains both a print statement and a single-line comment. The comment in both cases is used to provide context or explanation for the code.
Keyboard Shortcut for Selected Line Commenting in Python
The keyboard shortcut for commenting out a selected line of code in Python depends on the code editor or integrated development environment (IDE) you are using. Here are some common keyboard shortcuts for popular code editors:
- Visual Studio Code (VS Code): On Windows and Linux, you can use ‘
Ctrl + /‘ to comment out a selected line or block of code. On a Mac, you can use ‘Command + /‘. - PyCharm: On Windows and Linux, you can use ‘
Ctrl + /‘ to comment out a selected line or block of code. On a Mac, you can use ‘Command + /‘. - Sublime Text: On Windows and Linux, you can use ‘
Ctrl + /‘ to comment out a selected line or block of code. On a Mac, you can use ‘Command + /‘. - Atom: On Windows and Linux, you can use ‘
Ctrl + /‘ to comment out a selected line or block of code. On a Mac, you can use ‘Command + /‘.
Note that some code editors may use different keyboard shortcuts or require you to install a plugin or extension to enable commenting.
