curiosity with here document.

[Ray Andrews <rayandrews@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I often comment out blocks of code with here-document, and I just found 
this strange thing:

   /test1 ()/
   /{/
   /    if [[ "$1" = 'howdy' ]];/

   /: <<'COMMENT'/
   /blah blah
   COMMENT/

   /    then/
   /    echo stranger/
   /    fi/
   /}/

   /$ test1 no/
   /stranger/

There's no issue if I put the 'then' above the here-document. How should 
I understand that?  It is as if the here-document is hijacking the 'if' 
test and returning true. I'd expect the 'if' to go hunting for it's 
'then' and if it doesn't find it, then throw and error, but not let the 
here-document interlope.  But if this is proper then it's a caution as 
to using these things for commenting.