comment-strip-cli/README.md

A powerful CLI tool to strip comments from source code files while preserving strings and important metadata

# Comment Strip CLI 🛠️

🚫 Tired of noisy, outdated, or AI-generated comments cluttering your code?  
🔧 `comment-strip-cli` removes all the fluff in seconds — perfect for production-ready commits, open source cleanup, or polishing AI-assisted code.




## 🚀 Features

- **Multi-language support**: JavaScript/TypeScript, C/C++, Python, Solidity, Rust, Go, Java, and many more
- **Smart parsing**: Preserves comments inside strings and handles edge cases
- **Flexible filtering**: Strip specific comment types (e.g., only `//` or only `#`)
- **Backup support**: Create backups before modification
- **Dry-run mode**: Preview changes before applying
- **Auto-formatting**: Clean up code after comment removal
- **Recursive processing**: Handle entire directories
- **Special file support**: Dockerfile, Makefile, CMakeLists.txt

## 📦 Installation

### Global Installation (Recommended)

~~~
npm install -g comment-strip-cli
~~~

Local Installation

~~~
npm install comment-strip-cli
npx comment-strip --help
~~~


## 🔧 Usage



### Basic Usage 

~~~
comment-strip --help
~~~

- Strip all comments from a file:

~~~
comment-strip <FILE_NAME>
~~~

- Strip all comments from a directory:

~~~
comment-strip <DIRECTORY_NAME>
~~~

- Preview changes without modifying files:

~~~
comment-strip <FILE_NAME> --dry-run
~~~

### Advanced Usage


- Strip only single-line comments:

~~~
comment-strip <FILE_NAME> --type="//"
~~~

- Strip only hash comments from Python files:


~~~
comment-strip script.py --type="#"
~~~

- Create backup before processing:

~~~
comment-strip <FILE_NAME> --backup
~~~


- Process only specific file types:

~~~
comment-strip <DIRECTORY_NAME>/ --extensions=js,ts,py
~~~


- Combine options:

~~~
comment-strip src/ --type="//" --backup --extensions=js,ts
~~~


## 📝 Command Options

~~~
Usage: comment-strip [options] <file|directory>

Options:
  --type <type>,       -t    Comment type to strip: //, #, /* */, --, etc.
  --dry-run,           -d    Preview changes without modifying files
  --backup,            -b    Create backup files before modification
  --extensions <ext>,  -e    File extensions to process (comma-separated)
  --help,              -h    Show help message
~~~

## 🌍 Supported Languages
-  Programming: JavaScript, TypeScript, C, C++, Java, Python, Solidity, Rust, Go, Kotlin, Swift, Dart, Scala


- Web: CSS, SCSS, HTML, JSON

- Config: Docker, CMake, TOML, YAML, INI, Makefile

- Database: SQL


## 📋 Examples
### JavaScript – Strip // and /* */ Comments
- Before
~~~
// This is a single-line comment
const url = "https://example.com"; // Inline comment

/*
  This is a multi-line comment
*/
function greet(name) {
  console.log("Hello, " + name); // Greet user
}
~~~
~~~
comment-strip app.js
~~~

- After

~~~
const url = "https://example.com";

function greet(name) {
  console.log("Hello, " + name);
}
~~~

### 🐍 Python – Strip # Comments
- Before
~~~
# Import the OS module
import os

def say_hello(name):  # This function greets
    message = f"Hello, {name}"  # Format the message
    print(message)  # Display
~~~

~~~
comment-strip script.py --type="#"
~~~

- After 
~~~
import os

def say_hello(name):
    message = f"Hello, {name}"
    print(message)
~~~

### Solidity – Strip // and /* */ but Preserve SPDX & NatSpec

- Before 
~~~
// SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
pragma solidity ^0.8.0;

/// @title Greeter Contract
contract Greeter {
    string public greeting; // Stores greeting

    constructor(string memory _greeting) {
        greeting = _greeting; // Set greeting
    }

    /* This function returns the greeting */
    function greet() public view returns (string memory) {
        return greeting;
    }
}
~~~

~~~
comment-strip Greeter.sol
~~~

- After
~~~
// SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
pragma solidity ^0.8.0;

contract Greeter {
    string public greeting;

    constructor(string memory _greeting) {
        greeting = _greeting;
    }

    function greet() public view returns (string memory) {
        return greeting;
    }
}
~~~

#
### 🔒 Special Handling
- Preserves SPDX licenses in Solidity files

- Preserves shebangs (#!/usr/bin/env python3)

- Preserves docstrings in Python

- Handles comments inside strings correctly

- Supports regex literals in JavaScript
#
## 🤝 Contributing

- Fork the repository

- Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)

- Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature')

- Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)

- Open a Pull Request

#

## 📄 License
### This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.




#
<div align="center">

⭐️ Star it. Strip it. Ship it.

🖤 Built with passion using Node.js, for minimalists and CLI lovers



</div>


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