Like most programming languages, VTL includes constructs for inserting descriptive text comments into a template. Both single-line and multi-line (block) comments are supported.
A single-line comments starts with ## and only lasts until the end of the line. The following are examples of single-line comments:
This is not a comment. ## This is a comment. ## This whole line is a comment.
Multi-line comments are indicated by a start comment indicator (#*) and end comment indicator (*#). For example:
This text is outside of the comment block. It will be processed by the template engine. #* This text is inside the comment block. Therefore it will be ignored by the template engine. *# Back outside the comment block. This text will be processed.
There is a third form of comment referred to in the Velocity documentation as a VTL comment. This is another form of block comment. The following example is taken from the Velocity User's Guide:
#** This is a VTL comment block and may be used to store such information as the document author and versioning information: @author @version 5 *#
It is unclear to this author the difference between multi-line comments and a VTL comment block.
The Templates plugin also supports a special instance of the single-line comment to allow templates to be labelled. To label a template, add a single-line comment as the first line of the template file, using the following format:
## template = template_name
where template_name is the desired label.
For example, adding this comment as the first line of a template file:
## template = Java class
would indicate that the template file is to be labelled "Java class".
This label is used in place of the file name in the following locations:
dynamic menus under >
dockable templates dialog
Templates accelerator option pane under >
PLEASE NOTE: the "##template =" statement
replaces the "#ctpragma label" and
"#ctpragma name"
statements used by the Templates plugin until version 2.0.2.