String Literal Extractor
Pull every quoted string out of source code in a dozen languages — comments skipped, char literals ignored — then filter by quote style or length, decode escapes, dedupe, and export as a list, JSON, or CSV.
About this tool
The String Literal Extractor scans a block of source code and pulls out every quoted string it contains — double-quoted, single-quoted, and backtick/template literals — while skipping anything inside line (//, #) or block (/* */) comments. It is language-aware: pick the language and it applies that language's rules, so a 'x' character literal in C, Java, Rust, Go, or C# is consumed but not reported, Python triple-quoted strings are captured whole, and Go raw backticks and Rust raw strings (r"…", r#"…"#) keep their backslashes verbatim.
Use it to collect user-facing strings for translation (i18n), audit hard-coded URLs, secrets, or SQL, or turn a messy paste of code into a clean list of its literals. Everything runs locally in your browser — nothing is uploaded.
What you can control
- Language — choose from Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Java, C#, C, C++, Go, Rust, PHP, Ruby, or Shell, or leave it on Auto-detect to guess Python versus a generic C/JS profile.
- Quote style — keep every string, or only double, single, or backtick literals.
- Output format — a plain list of values, JSON, or CSV. JSON and CSV include each literal's source line, column, and quote style.
- Decode escape sequences — turn
\n,\t,\xNN,\uXXXX, and friends into their real characters. Raw strings are left untouched. - Unique values only — drop duplicates, keeping the first occurrence.
- Minimum length — skip literals shorter than a chosen number of characters (
0keeps them all).
Worked example
Input (JavaScript):
const greeting = "Hello, world"; followed by // "this comment is skipped" and const name = 'gizza';
With line numbers on, the list output is:
Hello, world [L1] then gizza [L3]
The commented-out string never appears, and each kept value shows the line it came from.
Limits and edge cases
- This is a deterministic quote/comment tokenizer, not a full language parser — it does not evaluate string concatenation, interpolation values, or macros.
- A string with no closing quote on its line is treated as ending at the line break (forgiving, not an error).
- Escape decoding applies only to non-raw strings; Go raw backticks and Rust raw strings keep their backslashes.
- Output is capped at 50,000 literals for very large inputs.
FAQ
Which languages are supported?
Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Java, C#, C, C++, Go, Rust, PHP, Ruby, and Shell/Bash. Auto-detect distinguishes Python from a generic C/JavaScript profile; pick the language explicitly for the most accurate comment and character-literal handling.
Are strings inside comments extracted?
No. Line comments (//, #) and block comments (/* */) are skipped for the selected language, so quoted text inside a comment is never reported as a literal.
How are character literals like `'x'` handled?
In languages where single quotes denote a character or rune literal — C, C++, Java, C#, Go, and Rust — a 'x' is consumed so its contents cannot confuse the scanner, but it is not reported as a string. In Python, Ruby, PHP, JavaScript, and Shell, single quotes open a normal string and are extracted.
What do the JSON and CSV formats include?
Both include one row per literal with its 1-based source line, column, quote style (double, single, or backtick), and the value. CSV values are quote-escaped so commas and quotes inside a string stay in one column.
Does the code get uploaded anywhere?
No. Extraction runs entirely in your browser via WebAssembly, so your source code never leaves your machine.
Developer & Automation Access
Run it from the terminal
Same engine as this page, headless — via the gizza CLI:
gizza tool string-literal-extractor "const greeting = \"Hello, world\";
// \"this comment is skipped\"
const name = 'gizza';
const tpl = \`id-\${x}\`;"New to the CLI? Get gizza →
Open it by URL
Pre-fill and auto-run this tool with query parameters — the names match the API/CLI:
https://gizza.ai/tools/string-literal-extractor/?code=const%20greeting%20%3D%20%22Hello%2C%20world%22%3B%0A%2F%2F%20%22this%20comment%20is%20skipped%22%0Aconst%20name%20%3D%20%27gizza%27%3B%0Aconst%20tpl%20%3D%20%60id-%24%7Bx%7D%60%3B&language=auto"es=all&format=list&decode_escapes=true&unique=true&min_length=0&line_numbers=trueMachine-readable descriptor: tool.json — title + parameters JSON Schema for agents.