No, *-* is not a comment, but it explains as much as a symbolic name would.
Were I again teaching a programming class I would downgrade an assignment that
had the comment
MVC FOO(*-*),BAR Length filled in by an EX
OTOH, I would accept
MVC FOO(*-*),BAR Executed by BAZ
As to "the only way to document it", the purpose of documentation is to
elucidate, not to satisfy a formal checklist. The only way to document
anything, IMHO, is to put it into context. That includes why you are doing
something as part of the entire program, not as an isolated instruction. Good
documentation of the above instruction would explain, explicitly or implicitly,
the purpose of moving some of BAR to FOO.
--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3
________________________________________
From: IBM Mainframe Assembler List [[email protected]] on behalf
of [email protected] [[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2020 4:45 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: *-*
On 2020-04-30 18:15, Martin Ward wrote:
> On 30/04/2020 03:48, [email protected] wrote:
>>
>> What's wrong with a comment?
>
> It *is* a comment (in the broader sense).
No it isn't. *-* doesn't explain anything.
If it did, people wouldn't be asking what on earth is it.
A comment that explains that the length is planted by
some other instruction or whatever else is it,
is the only way to document it.
