Why does the preprocessor replace comments by single space instead of removing them in C language [closed]

Question

I've read that comments in C language are replaced by single spaces while pre-processing. In the specification

The program is split into tokens separated by white-space characters; comments are replaced by a single space[emphasis added]. Then preprocessing directives are obeyed, and macros (Pars.A.12.3-A.12.10) are expanded.

Is there a specific reason behind this choice?

I've seen this example

#include <stdio.h>
int/*This is a comment*/main(){
    return 0;
}

If we don't replace the comment with a single space the above would raise errors. However, it appears a bad practice to write comments in this manner. Is there any other reason why replacing a comment with a single space instead of just striping it is helpful?

Answer 1

int a/* comment */b;

If it weren't replaced by a space the above would compile as int ab;. I would argue this would be worse than the current specs.