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2023-02-22

Cat a File Without Comments

It's super handy when a Linux config file is loaded with comments to tell you precisely how to configure the thing, but all those comments can really get in the way when you're trying to review the current configuration.

Next time, instead of scrolling through page after page of lengthy embedded explanations, just use:

egrep -v "^\s*(#|$)" $filename

For added usefulness, I alias this command to `ccat` (which my brain interprets as "commentless cat") in my `~/.zshrc` [1]:

alias ccat='egrep -v "^\s*(#|$)"'

[1] my `~/.zshrc`

Now instead of viewing all 75 lines of a mostly-default Vagrantfile [2], I just see the 7 that matter:

wc -l Vagrantfile 

	Vagrantfile

[2] mostly-default Vagrantfile

ccat Vagrantfile 
Vagrant.configure("2") do |config| 
  config.vm.box = "oopsme/windows11-22h2"
  config.vm.provider :libvirt do |libvirt|
    libvirt.cpus = 4
    libvirt.memory = 4096
  end
end

ccat Vagrantfile | wc -l 
7

Nice!

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