Hi,
I am running OpenBSD 4.3 STABLE in an i386 machine.
The man page for pf.conf says at some point:
"Any lines beginning with a # are treated as comments and ignored."
Now, if a comment line ends with "\", should the next line

be also treated as comment? I noticed this behaviour and I do

not know whether or not it should work like that.
Many times, when we are trying to test a different setup, we

duplicate a line, change something, and comment out the

original line.
Thanks in advance.
Regards,
Jose
--

See Exclusive Videos: 10th Annual Young Hollywood Awards

http://www.hollywoodlife.net/younghollywoodawards2008/

Yes, pf.conf(5) says that about the table files.
About the main pf.conf(5) file itself, it says:
     Comments can be put anywhere in the file using a hash mark (`#'), and ex-
Well, because you used \ to end the line, that # is not at the start of a

line.  It is in the middle of a split line.  And the previously described
Well, the result is predictable.

On Fri, Jun 13, 2008 at 1:14 PM, Theo de Raadt <deraadt@cvs.openbsd.org> wrote:
Sadly, this varies among languages and file-formats.  You just have to

know how the one you're working in behaves.
Languages and file-formats where comment removal occurs before

backslash-newline removal:

    sh

    csh

    perl

    python

    awk

    /etc/sudoers

    /etc/ipsec.conf
Languages and file-formats where backslash-newline removal occurs

before comment removal:

    tcl

    C

    C++

    getcap(3)-style files

    /etc/pf.conf
Philip Guenther

So, when in doubt, comment every line that needs to be comment out,

should work in almost all cases?
--

This e-mail may be confidential. You may not copy, forward,

distribute, or, use any part of it. Note, this text has no effective

legal binding on your part. There is no obligation to abide any or all

parts of this, just as any texts appended to e-mail on rest of the

Internet. For more information about disclaimers, please see:

http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/stupid-disclaimers/

The ambiguous case is a comment line that ends with a backslash, so

commenting out all the lines in a group of continued lines works in

all cases, yes.
(Beware how you phrase things: "comment every line that needs to be

comment[ed] out" is a tautology, as the meaning of "needs to be

commented out" depends on the file format, which isn't what you wanted

to ask...)
Philip Guenther

Interesting.  Good to know that.  In a small rule set it's easy to

notice, though.
I'm able to duplicate the behavior on 4.3 GENERIC#698 i386: comment

lines ending with backslash *are* including the subsequent line(s) as

part of the comment.
Regards,

-Lars