Many-line Comments

Often you want to use several lines for a comment like this:

/* Program 1

Write out three lines of a poem.
The poem describes a single moment in time,
using 17 syllables.
*/

class Haiku
{
  public static void main ( String[] args )
  {
    System.out.println("On a withered branch" );
    System.out.println("A crow has just alighted:");
    System.out.println("Nightfall in autumn."); 
  }
}

With this style of comment, everything between the two characters /* and the two characters*/ are ignored by the compiler. The / and the * must not have any character between them. There can be many lines of comments between the /* pair and the */ pair.