removing comments from .conf files

perbh · 2010-01-12 15:21:49

Far too often - when checking out a .conf-file, there is a pletoria of comments and empty lines - in most cases, comments start with a '#'.
This li'l alias will remove all the verbosity:

alias stripcom='egrep -v "^[ \t]*#|^[ \t]*$"'

example of use:

stripcom /etc/vsftpd.conf

enjoy!

[edit]
had to allow for spaces/tabs _before_ the '#' ...
[/edit]
[more_edit]
guess I should do the same for end-of-line as well ... :-(
[/edit]

Last edited by perbh (2010-01-12 15:43:42)

eldragon · 2010-01-12 16:28:02

................................ why?

perbh · 2010-01-12 17:05:14

*sigh* because - when people are asked to show their conf-files - you have to scroll down ad-infinitum to get to the juicy bits , those that really count. And all-to-often you look at the entries and miss out on the leading '#' - that's why! Using the above will give you only the 'valied' entries. But hey - you are free to ignore it!

brisbin33 · 2010-01-12 17:54:56

i use it to see how many lines of code it took me to accomplish a given task.

egrep -v "^\s*(#|$)" /something.sh | wc -l

perbh · 2010-01-12 18:30:13

brisbin33 wrote:

i use it to see how many lines of code it took me to accomplish a given task.
egrep -v "^\s*(#|$)" /something.sh | wc -l

eeeek! that's even better!

arch0r · 2010-01-12 21:02:27

sed -i "/^#/d;/^ *$/d"

also works

apollokk · 2010-01-12 21:26:55

OK, it's a good idea, but there's no point on doing that.

jasonwryan · 2010-01-12 21:36:27

apollokk wrote:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/facepalm.jpg
OK, it's a good idea, but there's no point on doing that.

You might want to read the entire thread - specifically, this bit:

perbh wrote:

*sigh* because - when people are asked to show their conf-files - you have to scroll down ad-infinitum to get to the juicy bits , those that really count. And all-to-often you look at the entries and miss out on the leading '#' - that's why! Using the above will give you only the 'valied' entries. But hey - you are free to ignore it!

The point is to cut down the amount of clutter in posts. It's an excellent idea.

jac · 2010-01-12 21:41:19

arch0r wrote:

sed -i "/^#/d;/^ *$/d"

Accomplishes something different, right? That actually removes them from the file, in place?

EnvoyRising · 2010-01-12 21:57:59

If you have xclip installed, couldn't you use:

egrep -v "^\s*(#|$)" /something.sh | xclip -selection c

to copy the contents of a config file, script, etc without comments directly to the clipboard, ready to be pasted into the forums?

Arch Linux

#1 2010-01-12 15:21:49

removing comments from .conf files

#2 2010-01-12 16:28:02

Re: removing comments from .conf files

#3 2010-01-12 17:05:14

Re: removing comments from .conf files

#4 2010-01-12 17:54:56

Re: removing comments from .conf files

#5 2010-01-12 18:30:13

Re: removing comments from .conf files

#6 2010-01-12 21:02:27

Re: removing comments from .conf files

#7 2010-01-12 21:26:55

Re: removing comments from .conf files

#8 2010-01-12 21:36:27

Re: removing comments from .conf files

#9 2010-01-12 21:41:19

Re: removing comments from .conf files

#10 2010-01-12 21:57:59

Re: removing comments from .conf files

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