Strip the continuation asterisk only where it is one

[ptr727]

From the low-confidence block of Copilot's fifth review of promotion #460, reported twice against the two places that did it.

The defect

A leading * was taken off every block comment body. That is the /* */ convention for continuing a line, and it is ordinary prose in every other block syntax.

<!-- *emphasis* leads here -->   ->  'emphasis* leads here'  ->  ['comment-case']
<#  *emphasis* leads here  #>    ->  'emphasis* leads here'  ->  ['comment-case']
/*  *emphasis* leads here  */    ->  'emphasis* leads here'  ->  ['comment-case']

The extractor removed the emphasis marker, which left a lowercase opening, and comment-case then reported a finding the extractor had created. A false positive built out of damaged text, which is worse than a plain false positive because the reported prose is not what the file contains.

The fix

Stripping happens only on a line that continues a /* */ block, which is the line the convention actually describes. The opening line keeps its text in every syntax, C included, since a * right after /* is content rather than a continuation. The /** documentation form is unaffected, being skipped before this point.

Verification

Four assertions, the first three watched failing against develop, each reporting a spurious comment-case:

case	before	after
<!-- *emphasis* leads here -->	['comment-case']	[]
<# *emphasis* leads here #>	['comment-case']	[]
/* *emphasis* leads here */	['comment-case']	[]
/* Start here. + * Still going. */	stripped	stripped

The fourth pins the convention where it does apply, so the fix cannot be read as removing it.

This is pre-existing rather than introduced by the promotion's earlier fixes. .lstrip('*') dates to d4c4085, the commit being promoted, so it reaches main for the first time with it.

71 self-tests and 19 repo_gate tests pass, uvx mypy --strict is clean, repo_gate is clean, charset and dupword exit 0, and the warn-only backlog holds at comment-wrap 454, semicolon 388, comment-case 56.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR fixes a comment-extraction defect in scripts/prose_lint.py where leading * characters were being stripped from block comment bodies even when the * was part of the actual prose (e.g., Markdown emphasis markers), which could then trigger downstream prose lint findings that the extractor itself introduced.

Changes:

• Restrict leading-asterisk stripping to carried /* */ block continuation lines (rather than all block comment bodies and syntaxes).
• Stop stripping leading * from same-line block comment bodies (e.g., /* *emphasis* */) so emphasis markers remain intact.
• Add a regression test covering the previously-reported false positives and pinning the intended continuation behavior.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

File	Description
scripts/prose_lint.py	Narrows where leading * stripping is applied during block comment extraction to avoid damaging prose.
scripts/test_prose_lint.py	Adds regression coverage for emphasis-marker preservation and /* */ continuation handling.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated no new comments.

Comments suppressed due to low confidence (2)

scripts/prose_lint.py:418

• The comment says the continuation marker is "one * and a space", but the code intentionally accepts any whitespace via body[1:2].isspace(). Consider updating the comment to say "whitespace" so it matches the implementation (and avoids implying tabs or other whitespace would behave differently).

            # Only `/* */` continues a line with a leading `*`, and only on a line it continues.
            # Taking it off anywhere else edits the prose the rules then judge.
            # The marker is one `*` and a space, so `**bold**` and `*emphasis*` keep theirs.
            if closing == '*/' and body.startswith('*') and body[1:2].isspace():
                body = body[1:].strip()

scripts/test_prose_lint.py:380

• This test comment says the continuation marker is "one * and a space", but the implementation strips when the * is followed by any whitespace (isspace()). Update the comment to match the actual behavior.

        # The marker is one `*` and a space, so a continuation line keeps its own emphasis.
        for text, body in ((' * **bold** here */', '**bold** here'),
                           (' **bold** here */', '**bold** here'),
                           (' *emphasis* here */', '*emphasis* here')):

[ptr727]

Answering the two round-two low-confidence findings. They are the same point against both copies of the comment, and both are right. Fixed in 33d3379.

The comments said the marker is one * and a space, while isspace() accepts a tab too. Checked rather than assumed:

'/* Start.', ' *\tStill going. */'  ->  [(2, 'Still going.', True)]

A tab-indented continuation is stripped, and the comment said it would not be.

Accepting whitespace is the behavior worth keeping, since a continuation indented with a tab is a real thing to write and there is no reason to treat it differently, so the words moved to the code rather than the code to the words.

71 self-tests and 19 repo_gate tests pass, repo_gate is clean, and charset plus dupword exit 0. No behavior change in this commit, so no case accompanies it.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated no new comments.