Howto clean comments from raw sql file

This is an extend of samplebias answer that work with your example :

import sqlparse

sql_example = """--comment
SELECT * from test;
INSERT INTO test VALUES ('
-- test
a
');
"""

new_sql = []

for statement in sqlparse.parse(sql_example):
    new_tockens = [stm for stm in statement.tokens 
                   if not isinstance(stm, sqlparse.sql.Comment)]

    new_statement = sqlparse.sql.TokenList(new_tockens)
    new_sql.append(new_statement.to_unicode())

print sqlparse.format("\n".join(new_sql))

Output:

SELECT * from test;

INSERT INTO test VALUES ('
-- test
a
');

# Remove comments i.e. lines beginning with whitespace and '--' (using multi-line flag)
re.sub('^\s*--.*\n?', '', query, flags=re.MULTILINE)

Regex string explained:

• ^ start of line
• \s whitespace
• \s* zero or more whitespace characters
• -- two hypens (static string pattern)
• .* zero or more of any characters (i.e. the rest of the line)
• \n newline character
• ? end of string
• flags = re.M is the multiline modifier

"When specified, the pattern character '^' matches at the beginning of the string and at the beginning of each line (immediately following each newline)"

See the Python regular expressions documentation for more details:

https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html

Adding an updated answer :)

import sqlparse

sql_example = """--comment
SELECT * from test;
INSERT INTO test VALUES ('
-- test
a
');
 """
print sqlparse.format(sql_example, strip_comments=True).strip()

Output:

SELECT * from test;
INSERT INTO test VALUES ('
-- test
a
');

It achieves the same result but also covers all other corner cases and more concise

Try the sqlparse module.

Updated example: leaving comments inside insert values, and comments within CREATE FUNCTION blocks. You can tweak further to tune the behavior:

import sqlparse
from sqlparse import tokens

queries = '''
CREATE FUNCTION func1(a integer) RETURNS void
    LANGUAGE plpgsql
        AS $$
        BEGIN
                -- comment
       END;
       $$;
SELECT -- comment
* FROM -- comment
TABLE foo;
-- comment
INSERT INTO foo VALUES ('a -- foo bar');
INSERT INTO foo
VALUES ('
a 
-- foo bar'
);

'''

IGNORE = set(['CREATE FUNCTION',])  # extend this

def _filter(stmt, allow=0):
    ddl = [t for t in stmt.tokens if t.ttype in (tokens.DDL, tokens.Keyword)]
    start = ' '.join(d.value for d in ddl[:2])
    if ddl and start in IGNORE:
        allow = 1
    for tok in stmt.tokens:
        if allow or not isinstance(tok, sqlparse.sql.Comment):
            yield tok

for stmt in sqlparse.split(queries):
    sql = sqlparse.parse(stmt)[0]
    print sqlparse.sql.TokenList([t for t in _filter(sql)])

Output:

CREATE FUNCTION func1(a integer) RETURNS void
    LANGUAGE plpgsql
        AS $$
        BEGIN
                -- comment
       END;
       $$;

SELECT * FROM TABLE foo;

INSERT INTO foo VALUES ('a -- foo bar');

INSERT INTO foo
VALUES ('
a
-- foo bar'
);