Comments, String literals, and Docstrings

When writing code, it often helps to leave non-executable notes to anyone who may be reading your code at a later point in time. This someone includes yourself.

Most languages have the concept of a comment, which are non-executable lines embedded into the source code, which can contain arbitrary text.

Code is not self documenting.

• It is easier to document code as its being written, than trying to figure out what a fragment of code is intended to do without documentation at a later point in time.

Writing comments

In Python, a comment starts with the # character. Any text on a given line after # is encountered, is interpreted as a comment.

For example:

# this is a comment, this entire line is ignored by the interpreter.
# print(4 + 4)
# The above line produces no output, since the interpreter ignores it.
print(7 + 3)  # outputs 10.
# the above line runs and doesn't produce a syntax error, since the comment starts where the first `#` in a line is encountered.

Multiline comments

Python does not have multiline comments.

String Literals

In the Hello, world! we made use of a string literal.

String literals take one of two primary forms: single line and multi-line.

print("hello world" == 'hello world')
# True


# Multiline strings:
# strings can also be composed of multiple lines

"""
This
is
a
multiline
string
"""

'''
This 
is 
also a
multiline
string
'''