LDP/LDP/guide/docbook/abs-guide/strip-comments.sh

#!/bin/bash
# strip-comment.sh: Strips out the comments (/* COMMENT */) in a C program.

E_NOARGS=0
E_ARGERROR=66
E_WRONG_FILE_TYPE=67

if [ $# -eq "$E_NOARGS" ]
then
  echo "Usage: `basename $0` C-program-file" >&2 # Error message to stderr.
  exit $E_ARGERROR
fi  

# Test for correct file type.
type=`file $1 | awk '{ print $2, $3, $4, $5 }'`
# "file $1" echoes file type . . .
# Then awk removes the first field, the filename . . .
# Then the result is fed into the variable "type."
correct_type="ASCII C program text"

if [ "$type" != "$correct_type" ]
then
  echo
  echo "This script works on C program files only."
  echo
  exit $E_WRONG_FILE_TYPE
fi  


# Rather cryptic sed script:
#--------
sed '
/^\/\*/d
/.*\*\//d
' $1
#--------
# Easy to understand if you take several hours to learn sed fundamentals.


#  Need to add one more line to the sed script to deal with
#+ case where line of code has a comment following it on same line.
#  This is left as a non-trivial exercise.

#  Also, the above code deletes non-comment lines with a "*/" . . .
#+ not a desirable result.

exit 0


# ----------------------------------------------------------------
# Code below this line will not execute because of 'exit 0' above.

# Stephane Chazelas suggests the following alternative:

usage() {
  echo "Usage: `basename $0` C-program-file" >&2
  exit 1
}

WEIRD=`echo -n -e '\377'`   # or WEIRD=$'\377'
[[ $# -eq 1 ]] || usage
case `file "$1"` in
  *"C program text"*) sed -e "s%/\*%${WEIRD}%g;s%\*/%${WEIRD}%g" "$1" \
     | tr '\377\n' '\n\377' \
     | sed -ne 'p;n' \
     | tr -d '\n' | tr '\377' '\n';;
  *) usage;;
esac

#  This is still fooled by things like:
#  printf("/*");
#  or
#  /*  /* buggy embedded comment */
#
#  To handle all special cases (comments in strings, comments in string
#+ where there is a \", \\" ...),
#+ the only way is to write a C parser (using lex or yacc perhaps?).

exit 0