Using sed to remove all console.log from javascript file - regex

Question

I'm trying to remove all my console.log, console.dir etc. from my JS file before minifying it with YUI (on osx).
The regex I got for the console statements looks like this:
console.(log|debug|info|warn|error|assert|dir|dirxml|trace|group|groupEnd|time|timeEnd|profile|profileEnd|count)\((.*)\);?
and it works if I test it with the RegExr.
But it won't work with sed.
What do I have to change to get this working?
sed 's/___???___//g' <$RESULT >$RESULT_STRIPPED
update
After getting the first answer I tried
sed 's/console.log(.*)\;//g' <test.js >result.js
and this works, but when I add an OR
sed 's/console.\(log\|dir\)(.*)\;//g' <test.js >result.js
it doesn't replace the "logs":

Answer 1

Your original expression looks fine. You just need to pass the -E flag to sed, for extended regular expressions:
sed -E 's/console.(log|debug|info|...|count)\((.*)\);?//g'
The difference between these types of regular expressions is explained in man re_format.
To be honest I have never read that page, but instead simply tack on an -E when things don't work as expected. =)

Answer 2

You must escape ( (for grouping) and | (for oring) in sed's regex syntax. E.g.:
sed 's/console.\(log\|debug\|info\|warn\|error\|assert\|dir\|dirxml\|trace\|group\|groupEnd\|time\|timeEnd\|profile\|profileEnd\|count\)(.*);\?//g'
UPDATE example:
$ sed 's/console.\(log\|debug\|info\|warn\|error\|assert\|dir\|dirxml\|trace\|group\|groupEnd\|time\|timeEnd\|profile\|profileEnd\|count\)(.*);\?//g'
console.log # <- input line, not matches, no replacement printed on next line
console.log
console.log() # <- input line, matches, no printing
console.log(blabla); # <- input line, matches, no printing
console.log(blabla) # <- input line, matches, no printing
console.debug(); # <- input line, matches, no printing
console.debug(BAZINGA) # <- input line, matches, no printing
DATA console.info(ditto); DATA2 # <- input line, matches, printing of expected data
DATA DATA2
HTH

Answer 3

I also find the way to remove all the console.log ,
and i am trying to use python to do this,
but i find the Regex is not work for.
my writing like this:
var re=/^console.log(.*);?$/;
but it will match the following string:
'console.log(23);alert(234dsf);'
does it work? with the
"s/console.(log|debug|info|...|count)((.*));?//g"

Answer 4

I try this:
sed -E 's/console.(log|debug|info)( ?| +)\([^;]*\);//g'
See the test:
Regex Tester

Answer 5

Here's my implementation
for i in $(find ./dir -name "*.js")
do
sed -E 's/console\.(log|warn|error|assert..timeEnd)\((.*)\);?//g' $i > ${i}.copy && mv ${i}.copy $i
done
took the sed thing from github

Answer 6

I was feeling lazy and hoping to find a script to copy & paste. Alas there wasn't one, so for the lazy like me, here is mine. It goes in a file named something like 'minify.sh' in the same directory as the files to minify. It will overwrite the original file and it needs to be executable.
#!/bin/bash
for f in *.js
do
sed -Ei 's/console.(log|debug|info)\((.*)\);?//g' $f
yui-compressor $f -o $f
done

Answer 7

I'd just like to add here that I was running into issues with namespaced console.logs such as window.console.log. Also Tweenmax.js has some interesting uses of console.log in some parts such as
window.console&&console.log(t)
So I used this
sed -i.bak s/[^\&a-zA-Z0-9\.]console.log\(/\\/\\//g js/combined.js
The regex effectively says replace all console.logs that don't start with &, alphanumerics, and . with a '//' comment, which uglify later takes out.

Answer 8

Rodrigocorsi's works with nested parentheses. I added a ? after the ; because yuicompressor was omitting some semicolons.

Answer 9

It is probable that the reason this is not working is that you are not 'limiting'
the regex to not include a closing parenthesises ()) in the method parameters.
Try this regular expression:
console\.(log|trace|error)\(([^)]+)\);
Remember to include the rest of your method names in the capture group.