Tool to remove JavaDoc comments?

Question

Is there any tool / Eclipse plugin that can remove all JavaDoc comments in a file?

The normal (non-JavaDoc) comments should be intact after running the tool.

are you talking about javadocs? – Denis Tulskiy Jan 31 '12 at 11:14 — Denis Tulskiy, Jan 31 '12 at 11:14
@DenisTulskiy yes javadocs.. my bad – Pacerier Jan 31 '12 at 12:45 — Pacerier, Jan 31 '12 at 12:45

Prashant Bhate · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-24T15:23:45.033

36

Try this regex to search replace either in eclipse / sed / your favorite editor that has regex support.

/\*\*(?s:(?!\*/).)*\*/

?s treat input as single line
a starting string \**
zero or more
- negative lookahead for */
- space or non space char
a trailing string */

Edit

To tackle cases where strings containing javadoc, use this regex

((?<!\\)"([^"]|(?<=\\)")*")|(/\*\*(?s:(?!\*/).)*\*/)

and replace it with first capture group

/1

Then if you say this shouldn't match

///** */

or more complex cases

I suggest, using a parser tool like antlr to parse using java grammar for tokens like comments and strings and remove elements that you don't want

Sometime I find my own regex answers cryptic !!

So here is some visual feedback

((?!\\)"([^"]|(?=\\)")*")|(/\*\*(?:(?!\*/).)*\*/)

Regular expression visualization

Debuggex Demo

/\*\*(?:(?!\*/).)*\*/

Regular expression visualization

Debuggex Demo

edited Oct 24 '14 at 15:23

answered Jan 31 '12 at 11:33

Prashant Bhate

10,907
7
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1

This doesn't work. It erroneously replaces sequences in strings. For example, I have a `String s = "/**asd*/";`. It's a string, it's **not** part of a javadoc. However it got replaced. – Pacerier Jan 31 '12 at 12:48
1

`((?<!\\)"([^"]|(?<=\\)")*")|(/\*\*(?s:(?!\*/).)*\*/)` matches ordinary strings! It killed all my strings. – Pacerier Feb 02 '12 at 21:44
You should be able to use something like `^[^"]*/\*\*` to match the starts of javadoc comments without matching anything in a string. – Tom Anderson Feb 02 '12 at 22:50
@Pacerier yes, it does match strings but as you are replace it with capture group 1 , it(string) will get replaced with itself ! – Prashant Bhate Feb 03 '12 at 02:51
1

@PrashantBhate Oh for the eclipse editor it should have been `\1` instead of `/1`. I'll take this as answer until someone else has a solution which doesn't fall in cases like these `///**test*/`, thanks! – Pacerier Feb 03 '12 at 04:15
@PrashantBhate sed doesnt support lookahead nor non-capturing groups so that regex wont compile. – Alan Berezin Apr 28 '16 at 04:52

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 23 '15 at 09:49

3

The answer of Prashant Bhate didn't work for me in eclipse ide:

/\*\*(?s:(?!\*/).)*\*/

I had to use

/\*/*(?s:(?!\*/).)*\*/

instead.

answered Oct 23 '15 at 09:49

isumi

69
3

This matches normal comments – caduceus Nov 16 '22 at 08:41

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 01 '15 at 08:25

I made a open source library for this purpose , its called CommentRemover you can remove single line and multiple line Java Comments.

It supports remove or NOT remove TODO's.
Also it supports JavaScript , HTML , CSS , Properties , JSP and XML Comments too.

Little code snippet how to use it(There is 2 type usage):

First way InternalPath

 public static void main(String[] args) throws CommentRemoverException {

 // root dir is: /Users/user/Projects/MyProject
 // example for startInternalPath

 CommentRemover commentRemover = new CommentRemover.CommentRemoverBuilder()
        .removeJava(true) // Remove Java file Comments....
        .removeJavaScript(true) // Remove JavaScript file Comments....
        .removeJSP(true) // etc.. goes like that
        .removeTodos(false) //  Do Not Touch Todos (leave them alone)
        .removeSingleLines(true) // Remove single line type comments
        .removeMultiLines(true) // Remove multiple type comments
        .startInternalPath("src.main.app") // Starts from {rootDir}/src/main/app , leave it empty string when you want to start from root dir
        .setExcludePackages(new String[]{"src.main.java.app.pattern"}) // Refers to {rootDir}/src/main/java/app/pattern and skips this directory
        .build();

 CommentProcessor commentProcessor = new CommentProcessor(commentRemover);
                  commentProcessor.start();        
  }

Second way ExternalPath

 public static void main(String[] args) throws CommentRemoverException {

 // example for externalInternalPath

 CommentRemover commentRemover = new CommentRemover.CommentRemoverBuilder()
        .removeJava(true) // Remove Java file Comments....
        .removeJavaScript(true) // Remove JavaScript file Comments....
        .removeJSP(true) // etc..
        .removeTodos(true) // Remove todos
        .removeSingleLines(false) // Do not remove single line type comments
        .removeMultiLines(true) // Remove multiple type comments
        .startExternalPath("/Users/user/Projects/MyOtherProject")// Give it full path for external directories
        .setExcludePackages(new String[]{"src.main.java.model"}) // Refers to /Users/user/Projects/MyOtherProject/src/main/java/model and skips this directory.
        .build();

 CommentProcessor commentProcessor = new CommentProcessor(commentRemover);
                  commentProcessor.start();        
  }

Thanks so much, great tool! – Andrey Yaskulsky May 05 '17 at 14:38 — Andrey Yaskulsky, May 05 '17 at 14:38

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 12 '13 at 16:35

0

The following works for me in vim:

/\/\*\*\_.\{-}\*\/

The \_.\{-} pattern matches any character (.), including the newline (\_), as few as possible (\{-}).

This matches against multi-line Javadoc comments such as:

/**
 * My Javadoc comment here
 */

But will not match against comments such as:

// My non-Javadoc comment

answered Mar 12 '13 at 16:35

jchilders

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1
5
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String `/\/\*\*\_.\{-}\*\/`only does the search. In command mode write `:%s/\s\+\/\*\*\_.\{-}\*\///g` to replace all Javadocs, including leading whitespaces. – Mauricio Jul 11 '21 at 05:41

Tool to remove JavaDoc comments?

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