Python Comment Remover

Overview

This script removes both single-line and block comments from Python source code while preserving string literals. It can be used to sanitize or preprocess Python scripts by stripping away unnecessary documentation or commentary.

Features

• Removes triple-quoted block comments (''' ... ''' and """ ... """)
• Preserves string literals within the code
• Skips commented blocks that are not string literals
• Can process multiline Python source files

How It Works

1. Reads the input source line-by-line
2. Detects whether the parser is inside a block comment or a string
3. Skips characters within comments while appending code to the output
4. Writes the cleaned source code without comments

Usage

python comm_rm.py < input.py > output.py

• input.py: File containing original Python code
• output.py: Cleaned version with comments removed

Functions

remove_comments(source: list[str]) -> list[str]

• Accepts a list of lines from a Python file
• Returns a list of lines with comments removed

Example

Input:

def hello():
    """This is a docstring"""
    print("Hello")  # prints hello

Output:

def hello():
    print("Hello")

Requirements

• Python 3.6 or higher

License

This project is part of CS 3342b – Organization of Programming Languages at Western University. For academic use only.