<p>I have a page that is generated which inserts an HTML comment near the top of the page.  Inside the comment is a *nix-style command.</p>

<pre><code>&lt;!-- command --option value --option2 value2 --option3 --&gt;
</code></pre>

<p>This comment breaks the page completely.  What is wrong with the comment to cause this to happen, and why is this the case?</p>

[{'answer_id': 5441, 'author': 'McDowell', 'author_id': 304, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/304', 'pm_score': 6, 'selected': True, 'text': '<p>Comments in the <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#sec-comments" rel="noreferrer">XML Spec from the w3.org</a> :</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p>For compatibility, the string "--"\n  (double-hyphen) MUST NOT occur within\n  comments.</p>\n</blockquote>\n'}, {'answer_id': 5596, 'author': 'Lance Fisher', 'author_id': 571, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/571', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>If you really want to keep the comment in your page you could use this instead of an HTML comment:</p>\n\n<pre><code>&lt;div style="display:none"&gt;command --option value --option2 value2 --option3 &lt;/div&gt;\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>Or even </p>\n\n<pre><code>&lt;div class="comment"&gt;command --option value --option2 value2 --option3 &lt;/div&gt;\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>and specify:</p>\n\n<pre><code>.comment {display:none;}\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>in your stylesheet.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 5632, 'author': 'Darren Kopp', 'author_id': 77, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/77', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>Comments at the top of the page before <code>&lt;html&gt;</code> will throw IE into quirks mode, which could explain why the page breaks, if that\'s where your comment appears.</p>\n\n<p>For more information, check out the "Triggering different rendering modes" on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quirks_mode" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this wikipedia page</a></p>\n'}]
['https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/5425', 'https://Stackoverflow.com', 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/219/']