How to put a line comment for a multi-line command

Question

I know how to write a multi-line command in a Bash script, but how can I add a comment for each line in a multiline command?

CommandName InputFiles      \ # This is the comment for the 1st line
            --option1 arg1  \ # This is the comment for the 2nd line
            --option2 arg2    # This is the comment for the 3nd line

But unfortunately, the comment after continuation character \ will break the command.

Answer 1

This is how I do it. Essentially by using Bash's backtick command substitution one can place these comments anywhere along a long command line even if it is split across lines. I have put the echo command in front of your example so that you can execute the example and see how it works:

echo CommandName InputFiles `#1st comment` \
             --option1 arg1 `#2nd comment` \
             --option2 arg2 `#3rd comment`

Another example where you can put multiple comments at different points on one line:

some_cmd --opt1 `#1st comment` --opt2 `#2nd comment` --opt3 `#3rd comment`