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Quick and easy way to remove "dead" (commented out) code

I'm working with an inherited code base which contains thousands of lines of commented out code. I know the previous coder meant to save all his hard work for posterity rather than simply deleting it but: I will never read it and it just gets in the way. One problem example is that when I perform text searches for certain code segments I gets dozens of "false" hits in the commented code. PITA.

Is there a quick/easy way to detect large blocks of commented out code? A clever RegEx perhaps?

I happen to be working in VB.NET at this time and comment character is a single apostrophe.

Solution

  • You can use a Regular Expression search. Search for 

    ^.*'.*$

    To find a single line with a comment. You'll probably want to find at least 3 lines that start with a comment:

    ^.*'.*\n.*'.*\n.*'.*$

    Keep the cat away from your keyboard.