Commenting code in Notepad++

Question

I'm using Notepad++ as an editor to write programs in Python. It might sound daft but I looked around in the editor and could not find any means (not the manual way but something like in Emacs) to do a block comment in my code.

Since so many language settings are supported in Notepad++, I'm curious to find a way to block comment code.

Solution 1

CTRL+Q Block comment/uncomment.

See Keyboard And Mouse Shortcuts - Notepad++ Wiki.

Solution 2

Try the following shortcut:

Ctrl+K.

Solution 3

This link was exactly what I was searching for .

Let me summarize the answers for others' benefit (for python and notepad++)

1) Ctrl+K on multiple lines (i.e. selected region) allows you to block comment.

Also note that pressing the combination multiple times allows you to add multiple "#"s (sometimes I use that while testing to differentiate from other comments)

2) Ctrl+Shift+K (on the commented region) allows you to perform block uncomment

3) Ctrl+Shift+K on an uncommented selected region does not comment it

4) Ctrl+Q allows you to block comment/uncomment in a toggled mode (meaning, you cannot add multiple '#'s like in 1) )

Hope this helps another wandering soul.

Question - how would you develop a hack of keyboard combinations to comment/uncomment if there were no shortcuts? Just curious. I've no clue hence asking.

Solution 4

Yes in Notepad++ you can do that!

Some hotkeys regarding comments:

• Ctrl+Q Toggle block comment
• Ctrl+K Block comment
• Ctrl+Shift+K Block uncomment
• Ctrl+Shift+Q Stream comment

Source: shortcutworld.com from the Comment / uncomment section.

On the link you will find many other useful shortcuts too.

Solution 5

for .sql files Ctrl+K or Ctrl+Q does not work.

to insert comments in .sql files in Notepad++ try Ctrl+Shift+Q

(there is no shortcut to uncomment the code block though. I have tried that on v5.8.2 )

View more solutions

Comments

[toto]

Both CTRL-K and CTRL-Q can be seen in the Edit menu of Notepad++

[user1066101]

"comment sections of my code"? In Python? The "#" key is missing? Clearly, you're not talking about Python comments using "#" or docstrings. What are you talking about?

[Arnkrishn]

Actually, I wanted to block comment my code written in Python or in fact any other language, in Notepad++ editor. May be that was not quite clear from my question. But Niels's and other answers helped.

[user1066101]

Are you talking about applying comments to all lines of a block of code? Please update the question -- don't comment on your own question when you can fix the question.

[Daniel Shields]

Is there a shortcut to comment out the current line of code? Ctrl-K and Ctrl-Q both need selected characters to work.

[Martyn Davis]

@ReadySquid - Notepad++ version 6.6.8 does not require any selection for Ctrl-K or Ctrl-Q to work (Introduced sometime in the last 5 years)

[Pacerier]

@toto, It's not shown. Which version are you using?

[vicsz]

To Get Ctrl-K and Ctrl-Q working for SQL you need to edit the langs.xml file in the Notepad++ directory. (With Admin rights, and with notepad++ closed). Add commentLine="--" to the language settings for SQL.

[machineaddict]

CTRL+Q is line comment, for block comment the shortcut is CTRL+SHIFT+Q

[BillyNair]

From dev.mysql.com - From a “-- ” sequence to the end of the line. In MySQL, the “-- ” (double-dash) comment style requires the second dash to be followed by at least one whitespace or control character (such as a space, tab, newline, and so on). This syntax differs slightly from standard SQL comment syntax. So, see if you need to use "-- ", but Notepad++ will change the color either way

[Shashank Sawant]

Hope this helps another wandering soul. It does.

[Pacerier]

@machineaddict, What's the opposite of that?

[Pacerier]

@BillyNair, Wow, good catch! Notepad++'s invalid highlighting is going to cause some serious bugs.

[machineaddict]

I've seen you are searching for this keyboard shortcut in multiple posts on SE websites. I don't know the shortcut. I only use Ctrl-Q combinations for comments.

[Juha Untinen]

Note that in order for it to work, you MUST specify the (programming) Language for the code. Also, if you copypaste a piece of code to a new file without specifying the language manually - or - it contains a mix of languages (eg. inline SQL in Python code), the block comment/uncomment will not work.

[Friso Horstman]

I laughed at first because i entered ctrl+w (thinking i actually hit ctrl+q(uit) like the answer proposed). but yeah, ctrl+q will actually comment multiple lines in notepad++ whereas netbeans uses ctrl + shift + w to comment multiple lines.

[vladasimovic]

For comment press Ctrl+Q or Ctrl + Shift + Q or Ctrl+K. For uncomment press Ctrl+Shift+K.

[walen]

Upvoted as this is the first answer to correctly mention that Ctrl+Shift+Q turns the whole selection into ONE comment instead of commenting each line separately.

[root]

@walen What difference do you mean? For me, Ctrl+Shift+Q and Ctrl+K have the same effect. What does "stream comment" mean?

[walen]

@root Comment using one /* at the beggining of the block and one */ at the end of it, instead of one // on each line which is what Ctrl+K does (for me and user3898160 at least).

[root]

@walen Got it, thanks. Depending on the programming language, Ctrl+Shift+Q and Ctrl+K may or may not have the same effect.