Hey guys,
As the title says I'm trying to make a regular expression (regex/regexp) for use in removing the comments from code. In this case, this particular regex is meant to match /* ... */ comments.
I'm using Ruby v.1.8.6
Here's my regex:
- multiline_comments = /\/\*(.*?)\*\//
When I try
- myStr.gsub(multiline_comments, "")
I see no effect. The string has big fat comments in it too. I tried using this regex in irb with a couple test strings, and it works perfectly. This leads me to think I don't understand some subtlety of file io, so here's all my code (cop-out, I know). I'm trying to write a very simple JavaScript compacter, but I want to preserve readability so I'm only getting rid of unnecessary newlines, spaces in between tokens, and comments. I DON'T want the whole file on one line like some compactors do it. Anyway, here goes:
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# Non-destructive JavaScript Packer
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# =================================
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#
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# Reduces overall script filesize by removing comments
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# and unecessary whitespace. Does not affect variable naming,
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# indentation, or line-by-line formatting in order to maximize
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# readability.
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def pack_line(file_line)
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return '' unless file_line
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#puts "The next line: " + file_line
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#kill one-line (//...) comments
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line_comments = /(\S*)\s*\/\/.*/
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intermed = file_line.gsub(line_comments, '\1')
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intermed += "\n" if intermed[intermed.length - 1] != "\n"
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#puts "\tAfter one-liner removal: " + intermed
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#kill unnecessary whitespace
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extra_whitespace = /([^(var|function|return|\s*)])[ \t]+(.*?)/
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intermed = intermed.gsub(extra_whitespace, '\1\2')
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#puts "\tAfter extra whitespace removal: " + intermed
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intermed
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end
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#performs the packing operation, returns a single string
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#representing the packed document
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def pack(file)
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lines = Array.new
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file.each_line do |line|
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lines.push pack_line(line)
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end
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intermed = lines.join
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#puts "\tBefore multi-liner removal: " + intermed
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#kill multi-line (/* ... */) comments
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multiline_comments = /\/\*(.*?)\*\//
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intermed = intermed.gsub(multiline_comments, '')
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#puts "\tAfter multi-liner removal: " + intermed
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#kill extra new lines
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extra_newlines = /(\r?\n){2,}/
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intermed = intermed.gsub(extra_newlines, "\n")
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#puts "\tFinally: " + intermed + "\n"
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intermed
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end
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#open file for reading and pass it to pack()
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def init(in_file, out_file)
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file = File.new(in_file, "r")
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newDoc = pack(file)
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file.close
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if out_file then
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file = File.new(out_file, "w")
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file.puts(newDoc)
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file.close
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else
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puts newDoc
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end
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end
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#start the script with the command-line arg file name
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puts init(ARGV[0], ARGV[1])
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Any ideas? Thanks for all your help.
