title: What's the official way to escape a comment (#) in Gherkin/Cucumber?
body: <p>I'm writing a Gherkin feature file, <em>e.g.</em></p>
  
  <pre><code>Given the following # data
  And   I open the page
  Then  all fields are correct
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I don't want the <code>#</code> in the above to be interpreted as a comment, which would remove the <code>data</code> afterward.</p>
  
  <p>What's the official Gherkin way to escape the <code>#</code> symbol, if any?  I've looked at the <a href="https://github.com/cucumber/cucumber/wiki/Gherkin" rel="nofollow">official documentation</a>, and this <a href="http://behat.readthedocs.org/en/v2.5/guides/1.gherkin.html" rel="nofollow">guide</a> and neither seems to answer my question.</p>
  
  <p>I've tried using the invented HTML entity <code>&amp;hash;</code> in my parser, which works and is easy to write a regular expression for. If I were to use the official HTML entity <code>&amp;#35;</code> or escape with a backslash (<em>e.g.</em> <code>\#</code>) either option would itself include the <code>#</code> symbol and make parsing harder. In the end, however, I'd rather use the official method, if possible, even if it's a bit harder to implement.</p>
  
  <p>Thanks in advance!</p>