Elevate your code comments with ASCII art - 5 tips

Code comments are crucial for maintaining and understanding codebases, but they often lack personality and creativity. Elevate your code comments with ASCII art! Here are five tips to make your comments not just informative, but also visually engaging and fun.

1. Use ASCII Art Symbols for Clarity

Incorporating ASCII symbols into your comments can help draw attention to important sections or steps. Symbols like arrows (→), stars (★), and check marks (✔) can be used to highlight key points or indicate completion.

Example:

# Function to calculate the factorial of a number
def factorial(n):
    # ✔ Base case
    if n == 0:
        return 1
    # → Recursive case
    else:
        return n * factorial(n-1)

2. Generate Big ASCII Art Headers

Make your section headers stand out by using big ASCII art letters. This helps in quickly identifying major sections in your code, especially in large files.

#                
#   _____    _       ______            _____    _____   ______    _____ 
#  |  _  |  | |      |  _  \          /  __ \  |  _  |  |  _  \  |  ___|
#  | | | |  | |      | | | |          | /  \/  | | | |  | | | |  | |__  
#  | | | |  | |      | | | |          | |      | | | |  | | | |  |  __| 
#  | |_| |  | |____  | |/ /           | \__/\  | |_| |  | |/ /   | |___ 
#  |_____|  \_____/  |___/             \____/  |_____|  |___/    \____/ 
#

Use the Text to ASCII Art tool on our website to create your own headers.

3. Include Fun ASCII Art Pictures

Why not add a bit of personality to your code comments with some fun ASCII art pictures? Whether it’s a dinosaur, a cat, or something else, these little pieces of art can make your comments more enjoyable to read.

Example:

#  
#       _______
#    .-'       '-.
#   /             \
#  |               |
#  |,  .-. .-.  ,  |
#  | )(__/ \__)(   |
#  |/     /\     \ |
#  (_     ^^     _)
#   \__|IIIIII|__/
#    | \IIIIII/ |
#    \          /
#     `--------`
#  
# def private_key():
#    pass

see our collection of ASCII comment art for more inspiration.

4. Visualize Folder Structures with ASCII Trees

When explaining the structure of your project or a particular directory, an ASCII tree can be very helpful. It provides a clear visual representation of the hierarchy.

Example:

# Project Structure:
#
# my_project/
# ├── src/
# │   ├── main.py
# │   ├── utils.py
# ├── tests/
# │   ├── test_main.py
# │   ├── test_utils.py
# ├── README.md
# ├── requirements.txt

Use the ASCII Tree tool.

5. Draw ASCII diagrams and boxes using subset of ASCII

Example:

# ╔════════╗
# ║ Hello! ║
# ╚════════╝
# 

Use our ASCII Box Drawing tool to pick characters you need.