Matlab Comment Stripper

A small set of tools for deleting specific comments in MATLAB/Octave code.

Requirements

• git - required for function striprepo

Setup

Download repository and add src directory to MATLAB's path:

addpath path/to/Matlab-Comment-Stripper

Usage

striprepo

Use striprepo(deletionMark, pathToGitRepo, showProgress) to delete specified comments from all m-files within git repository at pathToGitRepo (either relative to current or absolute path). Empty pathToGitRepo defaults to current working directory. Argument showProgress different than 0 will print current number of processed files.

striprepo(deletionMark) is equivalent to striprepo(deletionMark, '', 0).

To delete all comments, use empty string explicitly: striprepo('')

Note: if you don't use '%' sign at the beginning of deletionMark, only block comments will be affected.

Examples:

Assume that this is one of many files in your repository.

% a comment
foo = 'bar'; %?! this one is marked

%{
    block comment
    %{
        %?!
        marked and nested block
    %}
%}
a = 1 + 2; % one plus two

Use striprepo('%?!') cut out unwanted comments.

>> [files, errors] = striprepo('%?!')

% a comment
foo = 'bar'; 

%{
    block comment
%}
a = 1 + 2; % one plus two

Use striprepo('') to get rid of all the comments:

>> [files, errors] = striprepo('')

There is not a single comment in any of your files now.

foo = 'bar'; 

a = 1 + 2; 

stripfile

Use stripfile(deletionMark, inputFile) to delete specified comments from a file.

Use stripfile(deletionMark, inputFile, outputFile) to write result to another file.

Example:

Let's say your working directory is /home/project/src and you also have /home/project/copy directory. You can make a copy of a file and drop some comments.

The file at /home/project/src:

% hello
foo = 'bar'; %@ temp comment

>> [status, errorMsg] = stripfile('%@', 'file.m', '../copy/filecopy.m')

The file at /home/project/copy:

% hello
foo = 'bar'; 

More

See function descriptions for more info.

Credits

Peter John Acklam - main regular expression is based on the one used in % MATLAB Comment Stripping Toolbox