Re: need regex help to strip things like embedded C comments

[jimt]

in reply to need regex help to strip things like embedded C comments

printf("remember, /* this isn't a comment */");

printf("/* This isn't a comment %s */", /* but this is */ "/* this isn
+'t, though */);

// /* The code between these lines
int x = y + z;
// is not commented out. The line level comments take precedent */

In short, this is a potentially nasty problem. I would strongly recommend you read the very excellent Mastering Regular Expressions from O'Reilly by Jeffrey Friedl.

Regardless, any solution you come up with using regexes will probably only operate on a carefully crafted subset of the data, so proceed with caution. There are also variations depending upon which implementation of C you're using.

[Eradicatore]

Thanks for the reply! Yes, I agree there are definitely going to be gradations of how well any solution works here. I dont' need anything perfect. But I'm also mainly wondering about my one specific question. How to get somethinig like character negation but have it be more like "pattern negation". In this case, the pattern I don't want to be inside the non-greedy regex is /* which is the opening to a new c comment.