From 867ace3cb36ba08e7c5a4b20cad6641476561690 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Brad Arant <barant@barant.com>
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 2026 16:49:53 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] Give jetc a dedicated, fully inert <comment> handler at
 compile time

<comment> had no special-case in jetc's compiler at all - it fell
through to parseFallback(), the generic unknown-tag path, which hunts
for a tag's own closing tag via scanBody()/skipQuotedValue(), the same
quote-aware, backslash-escape-interpreting scanning real Jet attribute
syntax needs. A comment containing an explanatory " sequence (a JSON
example in prose, say) or a literal <else>/<if>-looking word - both
already confirmed, separately, to corrupt jetc when they turn up
inside a JS // comment - hit the exact same corruption here too, just
triggered from inside a <comment> block instead.

Added skipCommentTag(), which only tracks same-tag-name nesting depth
via the existing case-insensitive matchTagOpen/matchTagClose and
otherwise ignores every character - no quote tracking, no other-tag
recognition, nothing a comment's own body could ever trip over. Wired
into parseNodes() alongside the other recognized top-level tags;
unlike those, it pushes no node at all; the comment contributes
nothing to the compiled output, matching the runtime interpreters own
__comment behavior but now safe at compile time too.

Verified directly: a scratch .jet with five <comment> blocks (plain,
a bare quote, a backslash-quote JSON example, literal <else>/<if>
text, and nested comments with their own quotes) all compiled clean
and left zero trace in the generated code, with the <if> immediately
following them compiling correctly too - confirming nothing after a
tricky comment gets corrupted either.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
---
 jetc/JetParser.cpp | 43 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 jetc/JetParser.h   |  9 +++++++++
 2 files changed, 52 insertions(+)

diff --git a/jetc/JetParser.cpp b/jetc/JetParser.cpp
index 537259e..d4c792b 100755
--- a/jetc/JetParser.cpp
+++ b/jetc/JetParser.cpp
@@ -162,6 +162,48 @@ namespace jetc {
       }
    }
 
+   // Advances p from '<' of "<comment" (any case - matchTagOpen already
+   // confirmed the match before this is called) past the whole
+   // <comment>...</comment> construct, including any nested <comment>
+   // tags, counted the same case-insensitive way everything else in this
+   // file matches tag names. Deliberately does NOT call skipOpenTag/
+   // skipQuotedValue/skipEmbeddedTag or any other quote- or tag-aware
+   // scanning on the body text - a comment containing an explanatory '"'
+   // or '\"' (about the code itself, say) previously fell through to
+   // parseFallback()'s generic path, which DOES apply those rules while
+   // hunting for this same closing tag, and silently mislocated it
+   // exactly like the already-documented JS-comment-corrupts-jetc bug
+   // class, just triggered from inside a <comment> instead of a //
+   // comment. This only ever advances past '<'/'>' boundaries it
+   // recognizes as comment open/close - nothing inside can affect it.
+   void Parser::skipCommentTag(size_t &p) {
+      p += 8; // "<comment" (8 chars regardless of case)
+      bool selfClosing = false;
+      while (p < s.size() && s[p] != '>') {
+         if (s[p] == '/' && p + 1 < s.size() && s[p + 1] == '>') selfClosing = true;
+         p++;
+      }
+      if (p < s.size()) p++; // past '>'
+      if (selfClosing) return;
+      int depth = 1;
+      while (p < s.size()) {
+         if (matchTagOpen("comment", p)) {
+            depth++;
+            p++;
+            continue;
+         }
+         if (matchTagClose("comment", p)) {
+            p += 2; // "</"
+            while (p < s.size() && isNameChar(s[p])) p++;
+            if (p < s.size() && s[p] == '>') p++;
+            depth--;
+            if (depth == 0) return;
+            continue;
+         }
+         p++;
+      }
+   }
+
    bool Parser::skipOpenTag(size_t &p) {
       p++; // '<'
       while (p < s.size() && isNameChar(s[p])) p++;
@@ -555,6 +597,7 @@ namespace jetc {
                continue;
             }
             if (matchTagOpen("container", pos)) { flush(); nodes.push_back(parseContainerSlot()); continue; }
+            if (matchTagOpen("comment", pos)) { flush(); skipCommentTag(pos); continue; }
             if (topLevel && matchTagOpen("tag", pos)) { flush(); nodes.push_back(parseTagDef()); continue; }
             flush();
             nodes.push_back(parseFallback());
diff --git a/jetc/JetParser.h b/jetc/JetParser.h
index 5b97b05..3d36a18 100755
--- a/jetc/JetParser.h
+++ b/jetc/JetParser.h
@@ -61,6 +61,15 @@ namespace jetc {
       void skipQuotedValue(size_t &p);
       void skipEmbeddedTag(size_t &p);
 
+      // <comment>...</comment> must be fully inert regardless of what's
+      // inside it - unlike the generic parseFallback/scanBody path this
+      // tag used to fall through to (which applies the same quote/
+      // backslash-escape and nested-tag scanning real Jet syntax needs),
+      // this tracks only same-tag-name nesting depth via matchTagOpen/
+      // matchTagClose and otherwise ignores every character. See its own
+      // definition for the quote-corruption bug this specifically closes.
+      void skipCommentTag(size_t &p);
+
       std::map<std::string, std::string> parseAttrs(bool &hasContainer);
 
       // Scans forward from bodyStart (just after the opening tag's '>') for