How to Efficiently Remove Comments from PHP Code Using a Tokenizer?

Removing Comments from PHP Code Efficiently

Automating the removal of comments from PHP code can be a valuable practice for code simplification and clarity. One effective method for achieving this is through the use of a tokenizer.

To effectively remove comments while preserving line breaks and embedded HTML, consider the following solution:

<code class="php"><?php
$fileStr = file_get_contents('path/to/file');
$newStr  = '';

$commentTokens = array(T_COMMENT);

if (defined('T_DOC_COMMENT')) {
    $commentTokens[] = T_DOC_COMMENT; // PHP 5
}

if (defined('T_ML_COMMENT')) {
    $commentTokens[] = T_ML_COMMENT;  // PHP 4
}

$tokens = token_get_all($fileStr);

foreach ($tokens as $token) {
    if (is_array($token)) {
        if (in_array($token[0], $commentTokens)) {
            continue;
        }
        $token = $token[1];
    }
    $newStr .= $token;
}
echo $newStr;</code>

How It Works:

1. Open the target PHP file and read its contents.
2. Define an empty string $newStr to hold the stripped content.
3. Create an array $commentTokens to identify comment token types.
4. Utilize token_get_all() to break down the original code into tokens.
5. Iterate over each token. If it's not a comment token, append it to $newStr.
6. Output the modified string with comments removed, preserving line breaks and embedded HTML.

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