Commenting Out CSS: A Quick Guide

This article serves as a simple and comprehensive guide on how to comment out CSS for beginners and seasoned programmers alike. Understand the ease of controlling or disabling certain pieces of your CSS code through commenting.

Code Snippet

Before we delve deeper, let’s take a look at a typical CSS comment example.

/* This is a CSS comment */
body {
  color: black;
  background-color: white;
  /*  display: none; This style rule is commented out. */
}

In the above code snippet, you can notice the lines of code enclosed within /* and */. These symbols are CSS comment markers.

Code Explanation

Now, let’s break down the code step-by-step:

1. /* This is a CSS comment */: This is a simple CSS comment. Anything we write between /* and */ will be ignored by the browser.

2. The body block contains two active style rules that set the text color to black and the background color to white.

3. /* display: none; This style rule is commented out. */: This is a commented out style rule which makes the element it is applied to invisible on the page. Because it is commented out, it’s as if this rule doesn’t exist in the stylesheet. If you remove the comment markers around this rule, it would influence the visibility of the body element.

Commenting out is a core programming practice used for debugging or simply ignoring certain pieces of code without deleting them. In CSS, you can comment out anything from a single property to an entire block of code. When you’re working on a large project, commenting can also be used for leaving notes or instructions for other developers.