[Feature Request] Remove blank lines from stripped comments

[SpriteOvO]

For example:

#include <stdio.h>

// Let's say
// If we have multiple comments
// Like the example shown
// After using scc
// This will leave a lot of blank lines

int main() {
  printf("hello, world\n");
}

Run ./scc example.c, get result:

#include <stdio.h>







int main() {
  printf("hello, world\n");
}

It would be nice to add an option (or even by default) to remove these blank lines, for the example, I would expect more of this:

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
  printf("hello, world\n");
}

Anyways, this is a great tool, it has helped me a lot! Thank you!

[jleffler]

Thanks for the feedback. Multi-line comments inside /* … */ are already squished by default with an option to preserve the newlines (which is important to me). Reducing consecutive single line comments to a minimum is a good suggestion.

…

On Thu, Sep 7, 2023 at 13:34 Asuna ***@***.***> wrote: For example: #include <stdio.h> // Let's say// If we have multiple comments// Like the example shown// After using scc// This will leave a lot of blank lines int main() { printf("hello, world\n"); } Run ./scc example.c, get result: #include <stdio.h> int main() { printf("hello, world\n"); } It would be nice to add an option (or even by default) to remove these blank lines, for the example, I would expect more of this: #include <stdio.h> int main() { printf("hello, world\n"); } Anyways, this is a great tool, it has helped me a lot! Thank you! — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#3>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ACCAHBSM64LLDMEVBORPG43XZG5OXANCNFSM6AAAAAA4O2RZXM> . You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[jleffler]

QQ: In the example code, the desired output has one blank line where there was originally a blank line, 5 comment lines, and another blank line. Should the output simply reduce all sequences of 2 or more consecutive blank lines (3 or more consecutive newline characters) to one blank line (2 newline characters)? Or should there be two blank lines because they were both there originally. Suppose the input was like this (line numbers added for clarity): 1 #include <stdio.h> 2 3 // Let's say 4 // If we have multiple comments 5 /* Like the */ /* example shown */ 6 // After using scc 7 // This will leave a lot of blank lines 8 9 int main() { 10 11 12 printf("hello, world\n"); 13 } Should the middle comment line (line 5) be eliminated, even though there's a space in that line? ATM, SCC reduces that to an empty line, which I think is the correct behaviour, and the 'compressing newlines' code should eliminate it too. Also, should one of lines 10 and 11 be eliminated? I think it is going to be easier to reduce all occurrences of multiple adjacent blank lines to a single blank line than to do it only when there was a comment eliminated. Thus, it would be fairly easy to eliminates lines 3-8 and 11 and harder to only eliminate lines 3-7. Or, at least, there's a technique that makes it fairly easy. Any thoughts?

…

On Thu, Sep 7, 2023 at 6:34 AM Asuna ***@***.***> wrote: For example: #include <stdio.h> // Let's say// If we have multiple comments// Like the example shown// After using scc// This will leave a lot of blank lines int main() { printf("hello, world\n"); } Run ./scc example.c, get result: #include <stdio.h> int main() { printf("hello, world\n"); } It would be nice to add an option (or even by default) to remove these blank lines, for the example, I would expect more of this: #include <stdio.h> int main() { printf("hello, world\n"); } Anyways, this is a great tool, it has helped me a lot! Thank you! — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#3>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ACCAHBSM64LLDMEVBORPG43XZG5OXANCNFSM6AAAAAA4O2RZXM> . You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

-- Jonathan Leffler ***@***.***> #include <disclaimer.h> Guardian of DBD::Informix - v2018.1031 - http://dbi.perl.org "Blessed are we who can laugh at ourselves, for we shall never cease to be amused."

[SpriteOvO]

I haven't read scc code carefully, so I don't know much about the implementation details, however I will try my best to give my opinions on the questions based on my understanding.

Should the output simply reduce all sequences of 2 or more consecutive blank lines (3 or more consecutive newline characters) to one blank line (2 newline characters)? Or should there be two blank lines because they were both there originally.

As a user, I would want only 1 blank line to be kept in my example because the blocks in the original (with comments) are also separated by only 1 blank line.

Should the middle comment line (line 5) be eliminated, even though there's a space in that line?

ATM, SCC reduces that to an empty line, which I think is the correct behaviour, and the 'compressing newlines' code should eliminate it too.

I agree with that. Keeping spaces between them doesn't make much sense to me.

Also, should one of lines 10 and 11 be eliminated?

IMO, I think scc should focus on stuff about/around comment, not formatting code. For the latter, we already have clang-format. So I would more expect scc not to touch anything other than comment, it might be better to keep lines 10 and 11.

I think it is going to be easier to reduce all occurrences of multiple adjacent blank lines to a single blank line than to do it only when there was a comment eliminated.

Thus, it would be fairly easy to eliminates lines 3-8 and 11 and harder to only eliminate lines 3-7. Or, at least, there's a technique that makes it fairly easy.

What about we add a new CLI option to "squash blank lines around deleted comments"? If the option is not specified, the original blank lines will be kept, otherwise the original blank lines will be squashed into only 1 blank lines.

To demonstrate what I mean, for example

 1: #include <stdio.h>
 2:
 3:
 4: // This is a comment, above are 2 blank lines
 5: // This is a comment, below are 3 blank lines
 6:
 7:
 8:
 9: int main() {
10:
11:
12:   printf("hello, world\n");
13: }

If the new CLI option is not specified, the 5 blank lines around the comments are still kept, the 2 blank lines that are not around the comment are always kept whether or not the CLI option is specified.

 1: #include <stdio.h>
 2:
 3:
 4:
 5:
 6:
 7: int main() {
 8:
 9:
10:   printf("hello, world\n");
11: }

If the new CLI option is specified, the 5 blank lines will be squashed into 1 blank line.

 1: #include <stdio.h>
 2:
 3: int main() {
 4:
 5:
 6:   printf("hello, world\n");
 7: }

I'm not sure how hard it would be, since I'm not thinking specifically about implementation details. But if you have more questions feel free to discuss them with me, I'd be happy to help in some way.