Most efficient way to strip comments from a string javascript [duplicate]

Question

I am looking for an efficient way to strip HTML comments from a string representation of HTML:

<div>
  <!-- remove this -->
  <ul>
    <!-- and this -->
    <li></li>
    <li></li>
  </ul>
</div>

I do not want to convert the string to actual nodes, the content is originally a string and the filesize is around 600mb.

Curious if anyone has had this problem before and found an efficient, and easily generalized solution.

If you don't have nasty markup like <div title="zzz"> (notice, though, this is valid HTML) then regexes are acceptable, as comments are not nestable ( is the "same" as  -->). If you do, or if you are afraid you might, among other reasons, then consider a broader tool, like a parser. — acdcjunior
– acdcjunior, Commented Jul 22, 2013 at 16:55
@acdcjunior  --> is not the same as . The first parses too {ignored} -->, the second parses as {ignored} where {ignored} is the part the HTML parser ignores. This is precicely because comments are not nestable. — dtech
– dtech, Commented Jul 22, 2013 at 17:00
@dtech You are right. I expressed myself wrongly. I meant the initial part was the same. Meaning the second --> would not be a part of the comment, just as you said, so the regexes wouldn't have to mind nesting. (Edit: It does not matter now, I just tested,  is not valid HTML as I predicted. It yields the error The document is not mappable to XML 1.0 due to two consecutive hyphens in a comment. in the second --, meaning two hyphens inside a comment are only allowed to close it, nothing else.) — acdcjunior
– acdcjunior, Commented Jul 22, 2013 at 17:04

Fabrício Matté · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-22 17:44:04Z

3

assuming the variable s represents your html string, a RexExp replace as follows should work just fine.

s = s.replace(/<!--[\s\S]+?-->/g,"");

Variable s should now have comments removed.

edited Jul 22, 2013 at 17:44

Fabrício Matté

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answered Jul 22, 2013 at 17:13

Jim Elrod

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3 Comments

TaylorMac Over a year ago

Will test, although I am sure this is likely the best solution

HBP Over a year ago

Be aware of the gotcha that of -- inside HTML comments are "forbidden" according to MDN : developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Comment#Specification but are allowed by the spec though it makes a note that some tools may not allow them. This trips me up when I occasionally try and comment out script tags

dandavis Over a year ago

the ban on "--" is for XML documents, not HTML documents. read your link again.

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