Re: Fwd: [ELPA] New package: pspp-mode.el for PSPP/SPSS syntax highlighting

[John Darrington <john@darrington.wattle.id.au>]

On Sat, Jul 04, 2020 at 06:45:56PM -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote:
     Hi John,
     
     
     But the main issue is the comment syntax.  I'm trying to handle them
     right using `syntax-propertize`, but the patch can't handle the
     t-test-sps I found in PSPP's Git.  I don't understand what the real
     syntax should be.  The doc seems to suggest that comments start with `*`
     or `comment` (in the position of the beginning of a command?)
     and end with a `.` at an end of line or with an empty line, but in
     t-test.sps I see:
     
         * Females have gender 0
         * Create 8 female cases
         loop #i = 1 to 8.
     
     where the comment does not seem to be terminated (neither by a `.` nor
     by an empty line).  What am I missing?
     
I think the docs are misleading here.  As I understand the rules:

 COMMENT at the start of a line (optionally preceded by whitespace) begins a comment.
 * at the start of a line (optionally preceded by whitespace) begins a comment.
 In general, comments are terminated by the end of a line.

Maybe Ben could say for sure?

Unfortunately, the spss syntax is poorly formed, poorly documented and highly irregular.
It was kindof bodged together in the 1960s and we've been stuck with it since.

J'