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(indent.info)Disabling Formatting

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Disabling Formatting
====================

   Formatting of C code may be disabled for portions of a program by
embedding special "control comments" in the program.  To turn off
formatting for a section of a program, place the disabling control
comment `/* *INDENT-OFF* */' on a line by itself just before that
section.  Program text scanned after this control comment is output
precisely as input with no modifications until the corresponding
enabling comment is scanned on a line by itself.  The disabling control
comment is `/* *INDENT-ON* */', and any text following the comment on
the line is also output unformatted.  Formatting begins again with the
input line following the enabling control comment.

   More precisely, `indent' does not attempt to verify the closing
delimiter (`*/') for these C comments, and any whitespace on the line
is totally transparent.

   These control comments also function in their C++ formats, namely
`// *INDENT-OFF*' and `// *INDENT-ON*'.

   It should be noted that the internal state of `indent' remains
unchanged over the course of the unformatted section.  Thus, for
example, turning off formatting in the middle of a function and
continuing it after the end of the function may lead to bizarre
results.  It is therefore wise to be somewhat modular in selecting code
to be left unformatted.

   As a historical note, some earlier versions of `indent' produced
error messages beginning with `*INDENT**'.  These versions of `indent'
were written to ignore any input text lines which began with such error
messages.  I have removed this incestuous feature from GNU `indent'.