Visual Studio regex to remove all comments and blank lines in VB.NET code using a macro

Question

I was trying to remove all comments and empty lines in a file with the help of a macro. Now I came up with this solution which deletes the comments(there is some bug descri

Answer 1

I've just checked with the two examples from above, '+{.+}$ should do. Optionally, you could go with ('|'')+{.+}$ but the first solution also replaces the xml-descriptions ).

''' 

''' Method Description
''' 
''' 
Sub Main()
    ''first comment
    Dim a As String = "" 'second comment
End Sub

Edit: if you use ('+{.+}$|^$\n) it deletes a) all comments and b) all empty lines. However, if you have a comment and a End Sub/Function following, it takes it up one line which results in a compiler error.

Before

    ''' 

    ''' 
    ''' 
    ''' 
    Sub Main()
        ''first comment
        Dim a As String = "" 'second comment

    End Sub

    ''' 

    ''' 
    ''' 
    ''' 
    ''' 
    Public Function asdf() As String
        Return "" ' returns nothing

    End Function

After

Sub Main()
    Dim a As String = ""
End Sub

Public Function asdf() As String
    Return ""         
End Function

Edit: To delete any empty lines Search Replace the following regex ^$\n with empty.