Strip all comments and create a new file with only (JS) code

Question

This code hasn't been tested exhaustively - I would love suggestions about a testing library.

Critical, Optional and Positive feedback are more then welcome.

const fs = require('fs');

/**
 * strip all comments and create a new file with only code
 * @param {int} file name to clean..
 * @return {int} function returns 0 at the end.
 */
function clean(file) {
  const inputFileName = file;

  // create output file name. e.g: test.js -> test_CLEAN.js
  let outputFileName = inputFileName.split('.');
  outputFileName[0] += '_CLEAN';
  outputFileName = outputFileName.join('.');

  // clean output file old data
  fs.writeFile(outputFileName, ``, (err) => {
    if (err) {
      console.log(err);
    }
  });

  // comments regex defentions
  // lines starts with // where // can have spaces before for indentation
  const singleLineComment = /^\s*\/\//;
  // start skipping lines on /* can have spaces before
  const multiLineCommentStart = /^\s*\/\*/;
  // stop skipping lines on */ end the end of the line
  const multiLineCommentEnd = /\*\/$/;
  // mixed lines with code and inline comments
  const singleLineCommentAfterCode = /[;]\s*\/\//;


  // skip lines bool
  let skipLine = false;

  // load input file to memory, split it by lines, filter white space lines, then loop over each line
  fs.readFileSync(inputFileName, 'utf-8')
      .split(/\n/)
      .filter((line) => line != '')
      .forEach((line) => {
        // return in a forEach() callback is equivalent to continue in a conventional for loop.

        if (multiLineCommentStart.test(line)) {
          skipLine = true;
          return;
        }

        if (multiLineCommentEnd.test(line)) {
          skipLine = false;
          return;
        }

        if (singleLineComment.test(line)) {
          return;
        }

        if (singleLineCommentAfterCode.test(line)) {
          line = line.split(' //')[0];
        }

        // append lines to output file
        if (!skipLine) {
          // append additional \n at the end of a blocks (after '};')
          line = line === '};' ? line + '\n' : line;
          fs.appendFileSync(outputFileName, `${line}\n`, (err) => {
            if (err) {
              // append failed
              console.log(err);
            }
          });
        }
      });

  return 0;
}

Answer 1

To handle codes, use a parser. Build an AST from parser (maybe comments are already removed there). And then convert it to codes. A FSM implementation may work. (I'm not sure). But I believe your current RegExp approach are far from working.

Anyway,

1. Line break

JavaScript support 5 different line terminator sequence. Your code only support one or two of them.

2. Single line comment

Line end no need to have ;.

var a = 42// comment

3. Multi line comment

Start / end of multi line comment no need to take a single line. They may appear on the same line.

var a = 42; /* comment */

var a = 42; /*
*/ var b = 42;

3. Some more complex comments

After you fix above issues, you are ready to handle more complex situations:

var a = 3
/*
*// 3;
/*/ /*/
/* // */
// /*
var b = 4;
// */

4. String and RegExp

Text in strings / regular expressions are not comments.

var a = '; // ';

var a = '\
// ';

var a = `
// `;

var a = /[; //]/;

This would be more complex if mix them up.

var c = `; // ${function () {
    a =  '}';
    // Wow, SO failed to use correct syntax highlight for this too!
}}`

5. HTML like comments

This could be optional. Most browsers supports HTML like comments. But this is not required to every JavaScript engine.

var a = 42;
--> this is comment
<!-- this is comment too

6. Shebang

It is up to you if you want to handle shebang as comments. They work on some browsers.

#!/usr/bin/node

var a = 42;