arraybase 1
dim s$(4)
s$[1] = "apples, pears # and bananas"
s$[2] = "apples, pears ; and bananas"
s$[3] = "# this is a comment"
s$[4] = "  # this is a comment with leading whitespace"

for i = 1 to 4
	call stripComment(s$[i], "#;")
	print s$[i], " => Length = "; length(s$[i])
next i
end

subroutine stripComment(s$, commentMarkers$)
	if s$ = "" then return
	i = instr(s$, commentMarkers$)
	if i > 0 then
		s$ = left$(s$, i - 1)
		s$ = trim(s$) # removes both leading and trailing whitespace
	end if
end subroutine