Perl Tidy

http://perltidy.sourceforge.net/ is a mechanism to ensure code is consistently formatted.

-- MartinCleaver - 02 Oct 2004

• The CodingStandards don't provide any tools to help - is the core team using anything?
• Do people like perltidy?

Can we agree on some Perltidy format parameters?

Candidates

Cut from LiterateProgramming:

perltidy is very nice, I did the following to grab and format the latest TWiki code:

$ cvs export -r HEAD twiki grep
$ find . -type f -print | egrep -v '\.(tmpl|txt|html)|/.cvs' | xargs perltidy -ce -html

A sample of the output is attached to PerltestOutput

-- RichardDonkin - 02 Apr 2002

I particulary liked to use following perltidy parameters:

• -okw -okwl="next last redo goto return exit" -- to outdent mentioned keywords: make them "stick out" to the left to show they can change program flow
• -csc -cscw -cscp="###" -- "closing side comments" to display what statement is closed by }

My perltidy parameters are:

• -w -l=120 -nbl -ola -okw -okwl="next last redo goto return exit" -hsc -csc -cscw -cscp="###" -ce -sbl -wbb="+ - / *"

-- PeterMasiar - 03 Apr 2002

http://perlmonks.thepen.com/Style%20geekcode.html

-- MartinCleaver - 03 Oct 2004

http://perlmonks.thepen.com/158886.html

-- MartinCleaver - 03 Oct 2004

I'd like to make this part of our automate system - either from a nightly build perspective, or better, as part of a check on commit.

-- SvenDowideit - 31 Jan 2008

Do you want to change code formatting in the plug-in I maintain? If that's the case I would say: "please don't" About the check on commit: I would get nervous if my commit fails because I'm missing a tab before a curly bracket.

-- StephaneLenclud - 01 Feb 2008

must admit, I wasn'tthinking about doing it to the non-core code - though I'm surprised at your fear.

-- SvenDowideit - 01 Feb 2008

Please don't do this.

It means that when people provide patches they will often fail because of whitespace differences. And merging across branches becomes a pain also.

-- KennethLavrsen - 01 Feb 2008

TWikibug:Item5301: Item for the suggested automatic tidy at checkin.

-- SteffenPoulsen - 05 Feb 2008

merging across branches will be a pain irrespective of whether we use a consistent tool to re-format the code, or as Michael (and the rest of us do) reformatting a module by hand.

The difference is, with a tool, the reformatting will always be consistent, whereas each one of us does different things when we reformat.

I prefer consistency.

-- SvenDowideit - 05 Feb 2008