Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!hc!lanl!cmcl2!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: stripping comments from C source
Message-ID: <9893@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 22 Mar 89 03:36:26 GMT
References: <7150@siemens.UUCP> <9900010@bradley> <4896@cbnews.ATT.COM> <3145@nunki.usc.edu> <3163@nunki.usc.edu>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 11

I'm not sure why there is an interest in stripping comments from C source;
a more usual problem is getting adequate comments ADDED to C source!

Anyway, years ago when I had a similar problem (converting C++-style //
comments-to-EOL to C-style /*...*/), I found the easiest way to solve
the problem with acceptably high confidence in the correctness of the
solution was to design a FSM as a diagram, then implement it as a C
getchar() loop with a switch to the case label for the current state,
at which the appropriate action (typically a putchar()) would occur and
the global state variable would be updated to reflect the correct
transition to the next state.  Worked like a charm (no, not by magic!).