Introduction - Java Concepts - page 30

line breaks or closing braces to recognize the end of statements. For example, the
compiler considers

System.out.println("Hello")
System.out.println("World!");

a single statement, as if you had written

System.out.println("Hello")
System.out.println("World!");

Then it doesn't understand that statement, because it does not expect the word
System following the closing parenthesis after ÑHelloÑ . The remedy is simple.
Scan every statement for a terminating semicolon, just as you would check that
every English sentence ends in a period.

A DVANCED T OPIC 1.1: Alternative Comment Syntax

In Java there are two methods for writing comments. You already learned that the
compiler ignores anything that you type between // and the end of the current line.
The compiler also ignores any text between a /* and */ .

/* A simple Java program */

The // comment is easier to type if the comment is only a single line long. If you
have a comment that is longer than a line, then the /* È */ comment is simpler:

/*
This is a simple Java program that you can use to try out
your compiler and virtual machine.
*/

It would be somewhat tedious to add the // at the beginning of each line and to
move them around whenever the text of the comment changes.

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In this topic, we use // for comments that will never grow beyond a line, and /*
È */ for longer comments. If you prefer, you can always use the // style. The
readers of your code will be grateful for any comments, no matter which style you
use.