Re: How to strip comments out of code

From:
 =?iso-8859-1?B?UulnaXMgROljYW1wcw==?= <regis.decamps@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.java.programmer
Date:
Wed, 31 Oct 2007 16:14:21 -0000
Message-ID:
<1193847261.935786.267290@o80g2000hse.googlegroups.com>
On 31 oct, 05:43, Lew <l...@lewscanon.com> wrote:

silviocor...@yahoo.com wrote:

I need to write a class that will take a java file as input, strip all
the comments out, and save thre result in a different file....


Why not just decompile the bytecode?


Because decompilers change the syntax. Sometimes making it hard to
understand, sometimes easier, but changed anyway.
For instance
    public String toString() {
        String myname = this.getName();
        return("#<"
                + (myname!=null ? (" " + myname) : "" )
                + ">");
    }
becomes (with jad)
    public String toString()
    {
        String myname = getName();
        return (new StringBuilder()).append("#<").append(myname ==
null ? "" : (new StringBuilder()).append("
").append(myname).toString()).append(">").toString();
    }

Also, decompilers have problems, in particular with inline functions
or static declarations (see for instance http://www.kpdus.com/jad.html#bugs,
and JAD is one of the best AFAIK).

So, it was a nice idea, but does not provide a good answer to the
need. I like the idea of using a C/C++ preprocessor (even though there
might be side effects, too).
--
R=E9gis

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