You can remove all single- or multi-line block comments (but not line comments with //) by searching for the following regular expression in your project(s)/file(s) and replacing by $1:
^([^"\r\n]*?(?:(?<=')"[^"\r\n]*?|(?<!')"[^"\r\n]*?"[^"\r\n]*?)*?)(?<!/)/\*[^\*]*(?:\*+[^/][^\*]*)*?\*+/
It’s possible that you have to execute it more than once.
This regular expression avoids the following pitfalls:
-
Code between two comments
/* Comment 1 */ foo(); /* Comment 2 */ -
Line comments starting with an asterisk:
//***NOTE*** -
Comment delimiters inside string literals:
stringbuilder.append("/*");; also if there is a double quote inside single quotes before the comment
To remove all single-line comments, search for the following regular expression in your project(s)/file(s) and replace by $1:
^([^"\r\n]*?(?:(?<=')"[^"\r\n]*?|(?<!')"[^"\r\n]*?"[^"\r\n]*?)*?)\s*//[^\r\n]*
This regular expression also avoids comment delimiters inside double quotes, but does NOT check for multi-line comments, so /* // */ will be incorrectly removed.