[CWB] [cwb:bugs] #82 CQP can hang without output when executing queries ending in a comment

[Andrew Hardie]

Update: can confirm that in BNCweb, the following query
"elephant"%c             # coment comment comment
"and"%c
"castle%c

... evaluates as if it was just "elephant"%c


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**[bugs:#82] CQP can hang without output when executing queries ending in a comment**

**Status:** open
**Group:** TODO-3.5
**Created:** Mon Aug 03, 2026 01:51 PM UTC by Timm Weber
**Last Updated:** Tue Aug 25, 2026 02:15 PM UTC
**Owner:** nobody


Executing the following malformed query in CQP causes its prompt to hang without output: `[pos="JJ.?]? ("#?brexit"%c)` To get CQP out of this stuck state, the user has to input an additional `;\n` to get an error message.

This is unexpected behaviour and has the potential to break software using CQP in child process mode, since a deadlock situation arises (both cqp and the host program get stuck on reading stdin and stdout, respectively). See also [this issue](https://github.com/ausgerechnet/cwb-ccc/issues/92) (and subsequent workaround) for cwb-cc.

The underlying issue seems to be that any query containing a `#` character outside a string hangs indefinitely, since CQP will treat the rest of the line following the hash symbol (including the `;` and newline) as a comment. Just executing `#` or `#;`is enough to replicate the issue and will also hang cqp in the same way.

Interestingly, this only seems to occur when not using input line editing (the `-e` flag), i.e. in cqp started without any flag or in child process mode.


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