After thinking about the problem some more, I realized that my solution would not handle another case, not represented by the examples in the original question, namely something as silly as: 

This code stops here # but comments continue \# with a fake extension 
+here

[download]
A workaround is to make the regex into two expressions: 
s/(\\*)(#[^#\\]*)/length($1)?length($1)%2?"$1$2":$1:"TURNSTEP"/eg;

s/TURNSTEP.*//;

[download]

This makes sure that everything after a genuine comment is removed, period.

Ideally, you'd use something shorter and not likely to be in the input, e.g. a control character or something, but then again, 'TURNSTEP' is not very likely either. (If it is, I'd like to see that code! ;)

In reply to Re: quoting characters by turnstep
in thread quoting characters by WHolcomb

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.