comment out unused lines in hcmask file

[matt99]

How can i comment out unused areas/lines in hcmask file? Like you could do in most programming languages.

Lets assume i have this small hcmask file:

Code:

?l?l?l?l
?l?l?l?l?d?d
?l?l?l?l?d?d?d?d
?u?l?l?l?s

Now i don't want to use the last line

Code:

?l?l?l?l
?l?l?l?l?d?d
?l?l?l?l?d?d?d?d
#?u?l?l?l?s

Of course this will not work: "Invalid mask." But how can i achieve this without writing a new hcmask file and delete unnecessary lines?

[DanielG]

https://hashcat.net/wiki/doku.php?id=fre..._mask_file states:

Code:

There are 4 important syntax rules:

if you use \, the comma will be seen by *hashcat as a literal character, i.e. the backward slash escapes the comma (which would otherwise be seen as a separator between the different fields: -1, -2, -3, -4 and the mask)

if you use # at the beginning of the line, the line will be treated as a comment and hence ignored

if you use \# at the beginning of the line, the # will be used literally as a character (since the backward slash escapes the # which otherwise would be seen as a comment)

if you want to use a question mark (“?”, without quotes) within your mask or within your custom charsets, you need to escape it with an additional question mark, i.e. ?? means that the question mark is used as a literal symbol

So your # should work. It's weird you are getting an "Invalid mask." error