HTML Comment Tag

Beginner

The <!-- comment -> tag is essential to document your code with notes for later reference.

HTML Tags Reference

1. About the comment tag

Comments act a helpful reminders for anyone reviewing the HTML markup.

Comments also help with debugging. Here you can add and remove lines by placing a comment around it, instead of deleting it.

The <!-- comment -> tag can be used for single line and multiline comments. The commented lines will be skipped over by the program and not executed.

The <!-- comment -> tag follows an easy to forget pattern that must be followed strictly.

2. Syntax for the comment tag

The . So all of the comment-specific text between these two text strings is off limits to the browser.

In three scenarios below, the interior text string cannot form certain patterns because it would close out a comment tag. So these rules apply.

The interior text string:

Cannot start with > or ->.
Cannot contain <-- or --> or --!>.
Cannot end with <!-.

So it is best to summarize by saying, avoid making comments with these characters.

So a basic HTML document might look like this, with the second line blocked off as a comment.

<!DOCTYPE html>  <html> <head> <title></title> </head> <body></body> </html>

In some circumstances conditions are added to comments to tell the browser to use a specific code for a specific browser. This however is rare.

3. Settings for the comment tag

Unlike most tags, attributes do not apply.

Attribute	Purpose
`--`	--

4. Examples of the comment tag

Example 1 - Comment out lines of text

In this example, we have three "work in progress" page title tags and commented out two of them.

<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head>  <title>Page Title 2</title>  </head> <body></body> </html>

Example 2 - Comment out a partial line

Here, we have the same scenario except we added a comment to the end of the working title tag.

<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head>  <title>Page Title 2</title>   </head> <body></body> </html>

Here, the first part of the line <title>Page Title 2</title> will be interpreted by the browser, but the second part will not.

Example 3 - Comment out multi-line HTML blocks

Here, we use a multi-line comment to block out the first two title tags.

<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head>  <title>Page Title 3</title> </head> <body></body> </html>

Only the third <title>Page Title 3</title> will be interpreted by the browser.

HTML Comment Tag Reference and Examples