Justification

C does not support nesting of comments. However, some compilers allow this as a language extension. If so, the following code will not give a syntax error but just compiles and treat the critical function call as comments.

Example 1

/* some comment /* WRONG */                         
perform_critical_function();                                       
/* some other comment */

Example 2

/* This code is bracketed out because ... /* RIGHT */
 * code_to_be_excluded();    some other comment
 */

Note

The main argument for nesting comments is that it would allow programmers to "comment out" code. However, comments shall be used for adding documentation to a program and preferably mechanisms that already exist for source code exclusion shall be used.