How to comment out only code lines and not existing comments

Question

I use vim-commentary to comment. Hit g-c-c to toggle comments. But this will comment out the already existing comments if they start with // and it will comment out already existing comments startin with /*.

Is there a way (with / or without a pluging) to comment out lines of code while ignoring the already existing comments in the specified block?

Answer 1

You might want to consider using the NERD Commenter plug-in, which offers mappings with finer granularity.

See the default mappings, you have <Leader>cc to comment a block of code (not toggle) and also <Leader>cn to comment the code, but forces nesting (which makes it easier to uncomment the block and keep the pre-existing comments as such.)

You can override the default mappings by setting the global variables from the documentation in your vimrc.

Answer 2

The vim-commentary plugin uses 'commentstring' to define what a comment should look like. Some languages support multiple comment formats, e.g. // & /* */. Change 'commentstring to match the format that you use

set commentstring=//%s

However, if a project uses two different formats then you can still it becomes more challenging. I would then suggest making mappings which set 'commentstring' and then rest it after the commentary command is given with the CommentaryPost autocmd:

function! s:AltCommentary()
  let s:commentary_format = &commentstring
  let &commentstring = '// %s'
  augroup alt_commentary
    autocmd!
    autocmd User CommentaryPost let &commentstring = s:commentary_format |
          \ autocmd! alt_commentary
  augroup END
endfunction

xmap <leader>gc  :<c-u>call <SID>AltCommentary()<cr>gv<Plug>Commentary
nmap <leader>gc  :<c-u>call <SID>AltCommentary()<cr><Plug>Commentary
nmap <leader>gcc :<c-u>call <SID>AltCommentary()<cr><Plug>CommentaryLine