How to Remove Comments from C/C Code Using GCC?

Removing Comments from C/C Code

Eliminating comments from C/C source files can be a useful preprocessing step for various purposes. One approach to achieve this without resorting to preprocessing is by leveraging the capabilities of the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC).

GCC Command-line Options

Using GCC, you can employ the following command-line options to strip comments from a C/C source file:

gcc -fpreprocessed -dD -E -P

These options work as follows:

• -fpreprocessed: Generates a preprocessed version of the input file.
• -dD: Suppresses macro expansion.
• -E: Stops after the preprocessing stage.
• -P: Suppresses line number information.

Example

Consider the following sample C/C code:

#define foo bar
foo foo foo
#ifdef foo
#undef foo
#define foo baz
#endif
foo foo
/* comments? comments. */
// c++ style comments

Running the aforementioned GCC command on this file produces the following output:

#define foo bar
foo foo foo
#ifdef foo
#undef foo
#define foo baz
#endif
foo foo

As you can see, all comments have been successfully removed from the source code. This method provides a straightforward and reliable way to achieve comment removal without introducing any unintended modifications to the code.

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