This is a collection of notes and references on relevant syntactic variations in different computer languages.

General references: the free encyclopedia of programming languages

Standard Model

Standard Model (SM) describes a large group of languages with Algol-like syntax and the following traits:

Double-quoted string literals.
Single-quoted character literals with exactly one character in them.

There may or may not be a statement terminator/separator.

C Model

C model adds to SM

C-style backslash escapes for string delimiters.
/\* \*/ block comments, no nesting.
// winged comments.
Statements terminated by ;.
Block begin and end are { }.

Winged comments were introduced in C99 from C++ and were not present in older C.

Lisp Model

Double-quoted string literals.
A tick operator, always following a space.
Winged comments with semicolons
No statement terminator.
May or may not have block-comment syntax.

Ada

SM plus a tick operator; tick always follows and precedes an identifier with no whitespace intervening.

Winged comments with --.
Statements terminated by ;.
Block begin-end are :begin" and "end".

String Literals

https://www.adaic.org/resources/add_content/standards/05rm/html/RM-2-6.html

Tick operator

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7564183/anyone-can-give-me-a-summary-of-single-quote-mark-usage-in-ada

Comments

https://www.adaic.org/resources/add_content/standards/05rm/html/RM-2-7.html

B

Double-quoted strings.
Character literals may have more than one character, the value is packed into a machine word; see "putchar('*n*n');".
Winged comments with //.
/\* \*/ block comments, nesting unspecified.
No C backslashes yet. Has a pre-C escape convention using an asterisk.
Statements terminated by ;.

Block begin/end are C-like { }.

User’s Manual: https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/kbman.html

BCPL

Single quoted strings.
No backslashing.
No syntactic use of double quotes.
Winged comments, no block comments.
No statement terminator.

Block begin/end are C-like { }.

Reference manual: https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/bcpl.html

C, C++, Objective-C, Yacc, Lex, Java

Straight C model.

Yacc and Lex have %% sections with different syntax.
Java string and character literals may contain Unicode.
C preprocessor is applied.

Syntax reference for C and C++

https://www.cprogramming.com/reference/

C#

C model
Verbatim strings start with @" and end with " and may span multiple lines.

Specification

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/language-reference/language-specification/lexical-structure

ChucK

C-style winged and block comments. No string or character literal syntax. Statements terminated by ;.

Specification: http://chuck.cs.princeton.edu/doc/language/

CoffeeScript

Block comments with # , winged comments #. Strings with ' or " and can be multiline. Block strings with """ and '''.

Language reference: https://coffeescript.org/#language

Crystal

winged comments. No block comments.

C-style string and character literals with escapes. Regexp literals with bare / syntax. No statement terminator. Blocks with do/end.

Language reference: https://crystal-lang.org/reference/

Dylan

C-style block and winged comments.
String and character literals as in C, with backslash escapes.
Statements terminated by ;.
Idiosyncratic ALGOL-68-like block syntax.

Reference manual

https://opendylan.org/books/drm/

elisp

Lisp model. No block comments.

Reference: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/elisp.html

Elixir

No block comments, winged comments with #. Strings with ' or ", multiline strings with """ or '''. No statement terminator.

There are regexp literals, led with ~r/.

Elvish

Winged comments with #
No block comments.
Backslash line continuation
String literals with ' or ".
Strings may contain newlines.
C-style backslash escapes

Reference

https://elv.sh/ref/language.html

Factor

Forthlike, token-oriented language. Winged comment with !. Strings with ". C-style backslash escapes.

Factor handbook: https://docs.factorcode.org/content/article-handbook.html

Fantom

C-like comments with /* / and //. There’s an additional synax * for documentation comments.

String literals with " and C backslashes. Triple-quote string literals with """. There’s an idiosyncratic third string literal syntax for DSLs. C-like block syntax with { }. No statement terminator.

Language documentation: https://fantom.org/doc/docLang/index

Forth

Block comments with ( )
Winged comments with \\
The Forth word s" pushes its token argument on the stack as a literal.

Guide

http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/classes/551.jvn.fall01/primer.htm

More references

http://www.forth.org/fig.html

Groovy

Like Java with some additions: inline string literals with both " and ', Python style mutiline strings delimited by """ and '''. It also has "slashy strings" which behave like bare regexp literals. And dollar-slashy strings, a multiline version of same.

Groovy allows a hashbang comment at start of text.

Syntax reference: http://groovy-lang.org/syntax.html

Guile

Lisp model with C backslashing.

Escapes: https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/manual/html_node/Backslash-Escapes.html

Haxe

C-style block and winged commments. Strings may have " or ' as delimiter. Regexp literals with ~// syntax. C backslashes are interpreted. Statements terminated by ;. C-style begin/end with {}.

Manual: https://haxe.org/manual
Strings: https://code.haxe.org/category/beginner/strings.html
Regexps: https://haxe.org/manual/std-regex.html

Hy

Lisp model. Newlines are allowed in strings.

Syntax reference: http://docs.hylang.org/en/stable/language/syntax.html#string-literals

Io

Winged comments with //. Block comments with /* */. Winged comments with # are also allowed. Strings with "". C-style backslashes.

Reference: http://iolanguage.com/index.html

JavaScript, ActionScript, es6, Typescript

C model comments and inline strings. Adds single-quoted strings, regular-expression literals with bare // syntax. Statements terminated by ;. C-style begin/end with {}.

Typescript is a syntactic superset of JavaScript. ActionScript is a JavaScript dialect for the Flash macromedia player.

es6 Standard: https://www.ecma-international.org/ecma-262/9.0/
Typescript handbook: http://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/handbook/basic-types.html
Regexp literals: https://eloquentjavascript.net/09_regexp.html

JSX

Reference: https://jsx.github.io/doc.html

LiveScript

Block comments with /* , winged comments #.
Strings with ' or " and can be multiline.
Block strings with """ and '''.

Language reference

http://livescript.net/#overview

Logo

Winged comments begin with ;. There are no block comments.
String literals begin with " and are terminated by whitespace.
No statement terminator.

Reference manual

https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~bh/v2ch14/manual.html

mal

Mal is a small pedagogic Lisp with multiple implementations that follow the Make-A-Lisp process.

Standard Lisp model. Strings have C backslashes.

Repository: https://github.com/kanaka/mal

MoonScript

Reference: https://moonscript.org/reference/

Pkl

String literals with double quotes. Winged comments with ///. No statement terminator.

References: https://pkl-lang.org/main/current/language-reference/index.html

Pony

String literals with double quotes. Winged comments with //. No statement terminator.

Like Python, module comments are multistring literals.

Cheat sheet: https://www.ponylang.io/media/cheatsheet/pony-cheat-sheet.pdf

PowerShell

Winged comments with , block commenrs with < #>
Strings with "".
Idiosyncratic escape syntax with backtick.
C-like blocks with { }.
No statement terminator.

PowerShell syntax

https://ss64.com/ps/syntax.html

PostScript

PostScript is a stack-based language with graphics capabilities. It is usually used for defining documents that will render to printer or screen. PostScript files are typically generated and most PostScript generators put a comment starting with !PS-Adobe on the first line.

Winged-comment leader us %. No block comments.

Reference manual: https://www.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/en/devnet/actionscript/articles/PLRM.pdf

Racket

Lisp-model syntax. C backslash escapes.

Has | | block comments which nest. .

Groovy allows a hashbang comment at start of text.

Syntax: https://docs.racket-lang.org/reference/reader.html

Scala

C-model comments, string/character literals, and escapes. C-style block syntax. No statement terminator.

Specification: https://www.scala-lang.org/files/archive/spec/2.12/

Skew

Winged commends with #. No bloc comments. String lterals with ; or " and C-style backslashes. C-style block syntax.

Language reference: http://skew-lang.org/

Smalltalk

The GNU implementation of Smalltalk-80.

Winged comments with //. No block comments. An initial hashbang line is allowed, but loccount doesn’t know what "gst" means.

User’s Guide: https://www.gnu.org/software/smalltalk/manual/html_node/Tutorial.html

Visual Basic

Winged coments with '.
No block comments.
String literals with ""
C-style backslashes.
No statement terminator.

Syntax

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/visual-basic/language-reference/

Vimscript

String literals with " at start of line.
String literals with ' or ".
C backslash escapes.

Guide

http://learnvimscriptthehardway.stevelosh.com/

WebAssembly Macros

Standard WebAssembly text format .wat is s-expr based. .wast is the same syntax but denotes spec tests files (multiple modules, asserts, etc). .wam refers to WebAssembly Macro language (https://github.com/kanaka/wam) and also uses the same syntax.

Winged comments with ;. Block comments with (; ;). Strings are ".

Specification: https://webassembly.github.io/spec/
Syntax: https://github.com/WebAssembly/spec/tree/master/interpreter/#s-expression-syntax

XC

C-model syntax.

Specification

Yorick

C-model comments, string/character literals, and escapes. C-style block syntax.

Reference: https://dhmunro.github.io/yorick-doc/qref/qrlang00.html