How to delete XML comments

Question

I wrote a VBScript to remove all the comments in a XML file. But it didn\'t work correctly. The script reads from a .xml file, generates a XML file which removes comments an

Answer 1

You can try with something like

With WScript.CreateObject("msxml2.DOMDocument.6.0")
    .Async = False
    .Load "in.xml"
    .SelectNodes("//comment()").RemoveAll
    .Save "out.xml"
End With 

Answer 2

Do not use string methods for manipulating XML nodes. Every time you do a kitten dies.

Use a proper XML parser, e.g. like this:

Set xml = CreateObject("Msxml2.DOMDocument.6.0")
xml.Async = False
xml.Load "C:\path\to\input.xml"

If xml.ParseError <> 0 Then
  WScript.Echo xml.ParseError.Reason
  WScript.Quit 1
End If

Set comments = xml.SelectNodes("//comment()")

The above will give you a collection with the comment nodes in your XML document. After that it depends on what you want to do with the comments. If you want to remove them from the XML use something like this:

For Each comment In comments
  comment.ParentNode.RemoveChild(comment)
Next

If you want to uncomment nodes that had been commented use something like this:

Set fragment = CreateObject("Msxml2.DOMDocument.6.0")
fragment.Async = False
For Each comment In comments
  fragment.LoadXml comment.Text
  Set node = xml.ImportNode(fragment.DocumentElement, True)
  comment.ParentNode.ReplaceChild(node, comment)
Next

Then save the XML back to a file:

xml.Save "C:\path\to\output.xml"