---
id: comment-parser
version: "1.2.5"
license: MIT
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# comment-parser — Parse comments from various source files.

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 174.6K/mo

## What it is and what it does

Comment Parser is a Python module that extracts comments from source code files in multiple programming languages. It provides two main entry points: extract_comments() for files and extract_comments_from_str() for code strings. Both return a list of Comment objects, each exposing the comment text, line number, and whether it spans multiple lines. The module auto-detects file MIME types or accepts them as optional parameters, supporting languages including C, C++, Java, Python, JavaScript, Go, Ruby, Shell, HTML, XML, and others.

The package is useful for documentation mining, code analysis, and automated comment extraction workflows. It handles both single-line and multiline comment syntax variations across different languages. The module depends on libmagic for file type detection and requires Python 3.13 or later.

Use it for:

- Extract all comments from a codebase to generate documentation or audit code quality.
- Analyze comment density and patterns across multiple source files for code review.
- Build tools that process or migrate comments when refactoring large projects.
- Mine comments for compliance, security, or TODO tracking across polyglot codebases.
- Generate comment-based reports for documentation or knowledge base extraction.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Extracts comments from source code files across multiple programming languages, returning structured comment objects with text, line number, and multiline status.

Yes. The package is actively maintained, has no known vulnerabilities, uses a permissive MIT license, and solves a specific problem with low install friction. The Python 3.13 requirement is a constraint worth noting, but the package is stable (Production/Stable status) and suitable for comment extraction tasks across multiple languages.

## Install

pip install comment-parser
uv add comment-parser
poetry add comment-parser

## Installing comment-parser

Before you install: Low install friction with a pure-Python wheel distribution. Active maintenance with recent release (2024-12-25) and 102 repository stars. Requires Python 3.13 or later.

License in practice: MIT license permits commercial and private use with minimal restrictions; you may use, modify, and distribute this package freely provided you include the original license notice.

Quickstart:

pip install comment_parser

from comment_parser import comment_parser
comments = comment_parser.extract_comments('/path/to/source_file')
for comment in comments:
    print(comment.text(), comment.line_number())

libmagic system library required; on OSX and Windows, python-magic has special installation requirements beyond pip install.

Verify before relying:

- Exact list of supported MIME types and programming languages beyond those documented in the description.
- Performance characteristics when parsing large files or codebases.
- Behavior when MIME type detection fails or encounters ambiguous file formats.

## Package facts

- License: MIT (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 174.6K/month (top 15,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

extract comments from source code, parse code comments, comment extraction tool, source code analysis, documentation mining, code comment parser, multiline comment detection, code-analysis, documentation-mining, polyglot-support

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