~/bin/minimize - strip all comments and blank lines - I use on conf files a lot..

minimize

#!/bin/sh
if [ $1 ]; then
  if [ -f $1 ]; then
    /bin/egrep -v '^(\s+#|#)|^(\s+$|$)' $1
  else
    echo "  $1 is not a regular file"
    exit 1
  fi
else
  echo "  $0 needs a filename to strip.."
  exit 1
fi