Line numbers removed from answer

Question

I provided an answer here that included line numbers, such as:

 1 <?php
 2 
 3 apply_filters( 'the_content', function( $c ) {
 4     // blah
 5 } );

I came in today to find a message about an edit in my inbox, when I viewed it appears that moderator had edited my answer to remove the line numbers. I don't mind this, but I'm curious why it was done. I like the idea of being able to point to specific line numbers when explaining an answer, for example, but I'm sure there's a good reason for this edit that I may not be thinking of (do line numbers make it more difficult for copy/paste, for example?).

Answer 1

Usually when code is posted as answers it's as direct and to the point as possible. Like many code-related Stack Exchange sites users come into the answers and copy / paste the solution. To copy / paste the solution the end user would need to then remove the line number to add it to their codebase. The same could be said about the PHP tags. When explaining your code it may be best use keywords instead:

The $c content variable is passed into the the_content filter.

You may also want to consider adding PHP comments to the code itself to explain what variables are or what functions do:

/**
 * Modify the post content
 *
 * @param String $c     - The passed post content
 *
 * @return String $c
 */
apply_filters( 'the_content', function( $c ) {
    // Modify the post content here.
} );