Documentation comments

Documentation comments or doc-comments are a special form of comment, similar to JavaDoc comments.

Doc-comments can be placed before a directive, or before a callable label.

Standard doc-comments start with "/** and end with "*/".

/******************************************************************************/
/* This is a set of three classic comments, forming a box.                    */
/******************************************************************************/

/**                                                                             
 *  This is a doc-comment. It Starts with "/**" and it ends with "*/", and it   
 *  is placed immediately before a directive. A style patch has been applied    
 *  to highlight the doc-comment in reverse fuchsia, and a pad of 80 has been   
 *  specified as a fenced code block attribute, to embelish the display.        
 */                                                                             
::Routine R

Markdown doc-comments are contiguous sequences of line comments starting with exactly three dashes (that is, with "---" but not with "----").

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- This is a set of five line comments, forming a box. All the lines are      --
-- recognized as line comments, because they start with either less or more   --
-- than three dashes.                                                         --
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

---                                                                             
--- This is a markdown doc-comment. It Starts with "---", and it is placed      
--- immediately before a callable label. A style patch has been applied         
--- to highlight the doc-comment in yellow over dark blue, and a pad            
--- of 80 has been specified as a fenced code block attribute,                  
--- to embelish the display.                                                    
---                                                                             
Proc: Procedure Expose a b c

Documentation comments are always returned as a single element.

In the case of standard doc-comments, the Rexx Parser adds to the element all the whitespace which can be found, if any, in the first comment line, before the first "/" character, and in the last line, after the last "/" character. The returned element has an element category of .EL.DOC_COMMENT.
In the case of Markdown doc-comments, the Rexx Parser combines all the line comments, and preceding whitespace, if present, into a single element. The returned element has an element category of .EL.DOC_COMMENT_MARKDOWN.