Question on vi comments

[apple01]

I used UNIX years ago and need to get back into it a little. When I use vi to open some of my old files I see that I used the pound sign (#) to comment lines. However, for some reason, the pound sign does not work in my .exrc file, it causes a hic cup. However, a double quote (") works. I've done some searching but have not been able to determine the rules for commenting. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Ken

[atreyu]

Are you sure that the pound signs were not for bash/sh scripts that you were editing *with* vi? The comment character is definitely a " at any rate (go here and scroll about 2/3 of the way down, or look for COMMENTS - all caps).

Anyway, the .exrc file does not work with my current vim, maybe it has been replaced by ~/.vimrc (which definitely does work)?

As per the link above, do :help vimrc in a vi session to read more on the comment character.

[Cabhan]

First of all, using raw "vi" is pretty rare these days. It's more likely that you're using Vim (vi improved), which follows some different rules, including using ~/.vimrc as its resource file.

Every programming language uses different comment characters. Shell scripting (sh, bash, zsh) and many other scripting languages (e.g. Perl, Ruby, Python) use "#" to indicate that the remainder of the line is a comment. C-based languages (e.g. C, C++, Java) use // for this purpose, or /* */ to make a bounded area comments.

vi (and likewise Vim) uses " as its comment character instead of "#".