Question

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Python 3 regular expression to find multiline comment

I need some inputs on how this can be done,really appreciate your inputs,I looked at other posts but none of them matches my requirement.

How to remove line from the file in python
Remove lines from textfile with python

I need to match a multi-line comment in a file based on a input string provided.

Example:-

Lets say if the file “test.txt” has the following comment,if inputstring=”This is a test, script written” this comment needs to be deleted from the file

import os
import sys

import re
import fnmatch

def find_and_remove(haystack, needle):
    pattern = re.compile(r'/\*.*?'+ needle + '.*?\*/', re.DOTALL)
    return re.sub(pattern, "", haystack)

for path,dirs,files in os.walk(sys.argv[1]):
    for fname in files:
        for pat in ['*.cpp','*.c','*.h','*.txt']:
            if fnmatch.fnmatch(fname,pat):
                fullname = os.path.join(path,fname)
                with open(fullname, "r") as f:
                    find_and_remove(f, r"This is a test, script written")

Error:-

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "comment.py", line 16, in <module>
    find_and_remove(f, r"This is a test, script written")
  File "comment.py", line 8, in find_and_remove
    return re.sub(pattern, "", haystack)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/re.py", line 151, in sub
    return _compile(pattern, 0).sub(repl, string, count)
TypeError: expected string or buffer

Answer 1

This one does it as in the request: deletes all multiline comments that contain the desired string:

Put this in a file called program.txt

/*
 * This is a test, script written
 * This is a comment line
 * Multi-line comment
 * Last comment
 *
 */

some code

/*
 * This is a comment line
 * And should 
 *     not be removed
 *
 */

more code

Then search and replace. Just make sure the needle does not introduce some regex special characters.

import re

def find_and_remove(haystack, needle):
    pattern = re.compile(r'/\*.*?'+ needle + '.*?\*/', re.DOTALL)
    return re.sub(pattern, "", haystack)

# assuming your program is in a file called program.txt
program = open("program.txt", "r").read()

print find_and_remove(program, r"This is a test, script written")

The result:

some code

/*
 * This is a comment line
 * And should 
 * not be removed
 *
 */

more code

It adapts the regex in the related question

Editing the last section in your code:

for path,dirs,files in os.walk(sys.argv[1]):
    for fname in files:
        for pat in ['*.cpp','*.c','*.h','*.txt']:
            if fnmatch.fnmatch(fname,pat):
                fullname = os.path.join(path,fname)
                # put all the text into f and read and replace...
                f = open(fullname).read()
                result = find_and_remove(f, r"This is a test, script written")

                new_name = fullname + ".new"
                # After testing, then replace newname with fullname in the 
                # next line in order to replace the original file.
                handle = open(new_name, 'w')
                handle.write(result)
                handle.close()

Make sure that in the needle you escape all regex special characters e.g. (). If your text contains brackets, eg, (any text) they should appear in the needle as \(any text\)