Block Comments in a Shell Script

Question

Is there a simple way to comment out a block of code in a shell script?

Answer 1

In bash:

#!/bin/bash
echo before comment
: <<'END'
bla bla
blurfl
END
echo after comment

The ' and ' around the END delimiter are important, otherwise things inside the block like for example $(command) will be parsed and executed.

For an explanation, see this and this question.