[mikeash]

If annotations are in comments, how are you going to leave actual comments containing annotations that you don't want to actually affect the code?

[tomcorrigan]

Easily, the annotation parser ignores all comments that it doesn't recognise.

    /**
     * @var integer $id
     *
     * @ORM\Column(name="id", type="integer")
     * @ORM\Id
     * @ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
     * some comment that the doctrine parser will ignore completely
     */
    private $id;

[prunebeads]

by escaping them?

Some annotations are meant to affect the code, some aren't. Those who do and need to be given as pure comments need to be escaped.

[mikeash]

So now you have a system for putting comments inside your comments? Are you going to eventually start putting meta-annotations inside your meta-comments, and inventing meta-meta-comments so you can comment on the meta-annotations?

[prunebeads]

Actually, no. What I have now is comment blocks which may contain normal annotations and escaped ones. There's no need to go deeper in meta-meta-something.

Regarding the comment inside comment system, if it were possible to have nested comments, it wouldn't be a problem anymore :). Since it's a Symfony convention, one could simply count the number of stars at the beginning of a comment line to know the meta-comment depth level. BTW, I know that you are being sarcastic here.

Anyway, this is beside the original problem. Annotations in comments are a problem, granted, but somewhat limited. It's easier and faster for a parser to look for comments and then annotations in them, rather than parse the whole PHP grammar augmented with annotations. Especially in PHP.

[Dylan16807]

So now you have a system for putting quotation marks inside your strings? Are you going to eventually start putting escaped-quotation marks inside your escaped-quotes, and inventing escaped-escaped-quotation marks so you can quote the quoted-quotation marks?

In other words, there is no need for some kind of elaborate escapes-upon-escapes method here, all you have to do is not start a comment line with *@.

[conradfr]

By not using / * * to start your comment block ?

[mikeash]

If you're going to have different syntax for annotations and actual comments, why not choose a syntax that's properly different and not just a weird mutation?

[robryan]

Because they want something that is still valid PHP.

[mikeash]

But why? Do I misunderstand that these annotations change the meaning of the code? Why would you want something that's still valid PHP without them, but means something else?