Removing comments from a script?

How would you go about removing comments from this

local scr = [[
local t = "hello world" -- cool
local f = "world hello" -- removing comments
]]
print(scr) --outcome (supposed to be) local t = "hello world"local f = "worldhello"
instead of //--\\ local t = "hello world" -- cool
local f = "world hello" -- removing comments

I tried using string.gsub but also failed, also couldn't find any articles to help me

people are saying this is a solution, but I'm trying to make this

comment_symbols = "--"

s1 = [[
"cool" -- lol
"man"	
]]

print ( string.match( s1, "[^"..comment_symbols.."]+" ) ) -- outputs cool

im trying to make this output "cool man" instead of just "cool"

Hello everyone, I know this reply is a year late but this is what I came up with:

local astring  = [[
local a = {
    "foo", -- fa fa fa fa fa
    "bar"
}
]]

print(astring:gsub("--(-.-)\n","\n"))

This prints out:

    local a = {
        "foo", 
        "bar"
    }

I'm a year late, yay.

We need it to ignore string formats because it will mess up the code, right?

This is the multi-lined version

local function GetMutliLinedComments(code)
	local commentfound = false -- if the comments found then it will turn true
	local start_ = 0 -- the start of the comment
	local end_ = 0 -- the end of the comment
	local sub = 0 -- its use is to get the next letter(or word)
	local ignore = false -- if the function can ignore the comment inside a format
	local comments = {}
	code:gsub(".",function(c) -- usin gsub( well it's kinda bad cuz it has a limit
		sub = sub + 1 -- what
		if c == '"'  then -- if it is a string format then
			if ignore then 
				ignore = false
			else
				ignore = true
				return -- not gonna do anything
			end
		end
		
		if c == "'"  then-- if it is a string format then
			if ignore then
				ignore = false
			else
				ignore = true
				return
			end
		end
		if code:sub(sub,sub+1) == "[[" and code:sub(sub-2,sub+1) ~= "--[["  then-- if it is a string format then
			if ignore then
				ignore = false
			else
				print(code:sub(sub-2,sub+1))
				ignore = true
				return
			end
		end
		if not ignore then -- here comes the fun part
			if code:sub(sub,sub+3) == "--[[" and commentfound == false then -- finds a comment format and no comments are found then
				commentfound = true -- a comment is found!
				start_ = sub
			end
			if code:sub(sub,sub+1) == "]]" and commentfound == true then -- finds teh end of a comment format and a comment format is found then
				commentfound = false -- if it's the end of the format no comments are found
				end_ = sub+1 -- just a little bug
				table.insert(comments,code:sub(start_,end_)) -- inserts the comment format into a table
			end
		end
	end)
	return (comments) -- returns the table
end

String.match will work just fine here, just implement it correctly.

http://lua-users.org/wiki/PatternsTutorial https://www.rosettacode.org/wiki/Strip_comments_from_a_string