Inserting Comments (-C) into objects

ACEDB permits the addition of free-form comments anywhere within an object, i.e. following any tag or field. Using this feature does not require modifying the models. The comment does not occupy a designated field. Instead, comments are added as part of the data.

For example, consider the following model and data:

?Publication Title Text

Publication 67890
Title "The Worm and its Uses" -C "See recipe on p. 59"

Publication 12345
Reference -C "Check this out!"
Title "The Truth About Worms"
The result is

The comments are displayed using a special highlighting that alerts users to their status.

The "Global Search" on the ACEDB main window will retrieve objects bearing a comment which matches the search string. The comments themselves are stored as members of ?Comment, a built-in class with properties similar to ?Text and ?Keyword.

Although the comment can follow any tag or field, in the .ace file it should always be the last item on the line. Thus the data below will not load correctly:

Publication 12345
Reference -C "Check this out!" Title "The Truth About Worms"