While programming comments are very useful. As these help the current development and the future development of the program. Comments should provide the clear picture of procedure or variable declaration.
A comment should have following sections for procedure
| Section Heading | Comment Description |
|---|---|
| Purpose | What the procedure does |
| Assumptions | List of each external variable, control, open file, or another element that is not obvious. |
| Effects | List of each affected external variable, control, or file and the effect it has (only if this is not obvious) |
| Inputs | Each argument that may not be obvious; arguments are on a separate line with inline comments |
| Returns | Explanation of the values returned by functions |
E.g.
‘*************************************************************
‘ procedureName()
‘ Purpose: Sum of two numbers
‘ Inputs: a , b – the two values to be summed
‘ Returns: The sum of two numbers
‘*************************************************************
It’s particularly important to list all the global variables a procedure uses or affects in this initial comment block.