Comments and Flags

Welcome to the final page of this guide! Let's talk about comments and flags.

Comments

Comments represent text meant for the viewer of the code. Comments can be used to explain a certain piece of code, show credits, add notes, etc. Comments are ignored by the compiler, therefore they do not have any kind of influence on your script.

Here's an example of a comment followed by a variable definition:

-- This is a comment
thisIsAVariable = true

As you can see, comments start with -- and contain text that's meant for a human. A single comment occupies a single line.

There are two rules for defining comments in Powerlang:

• The comment must begin with -- (there must be a space after --)

• The comment must not be at the last line of the script

It is possible to make multi-line comments by combining multiple comments:

-- Comment 1
-- Comment 2
-- Comment 3
thisIsAVariable = true

Flags

Flags tell the compiler how your code should be processed. Just like comments, flags don't directly influence your code's structure, however they have an effect on the code's compilation.

For example, you may observe that by default, a "watermark" block gets added to all compiled scripts:

But you can define the DoNotIncludeWatermark flag to omit it. Here's how a flag is defined:

@flag DoNotIncludeWatermark
-- your code here...

Now when you compile the script, you will notice that the watermark is gone:

But your code still runs the same way it did before.

As of right now, 6 (but only 2 usable) flags are available:

Flag	Description
AllowNoSemicolons	Deprecated, as it is already enabled by default since Alpha 0.7. This would remove the requirement to add ; characters at the end of each line, which used to be mandatory prior to Alpha 0.7.
BypassVariableAntiFilter	Disables variable randomization, thus making variable names susceptible to the Roblox filter, however this option can fix certain broken scripts.
DoNotIncludeWatermark	Do not include the "Compiled with Powerlang on ..." watermark block
MultilineCallsTest	Deprecated, as it is already enabled by default since Beta 0.11. Enables stretching calls to multiple lines without the Unclosed bracket error
UseIPathForEvents	Deprecated, as it is already enabled by default.
UseVSV3	Incomplete. This enables the experimental Visual Scripting V3 compression algorithm. This is a placeholder, and although your program will compile, the output will not be valid. UseVSV3 will be finished at a later date and made default if all goes well.

Although the current amount of available flags is little, more will be added as Powerlang evolves.

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You finished the Powerlang Beginner's Guide. Now you are (hopefully) ready to make your own games and programs of interest!

Be sure to check out the Potato Rush demo game project to see your skill in practice.

Or if you feel confident enough, check out the documentation.