Indenting code?

[Jim Gish]

I miss-stated this.  Here's what I meant to say:

"I think the tricky thing here, based on what Alan & I said earlier, is 
that the tools /can't/ massage the whole file.  I don't know of tools 
that have rules like that.  Anyone else? "

On 09/14/2012 02:17 PM, Jim Gish wrote:
>
> On 09/14/2012 01:36 PM, John Zavgren wrote:
>> Good summary, Jim. Thanks.
>>
>> All I was suggesting is that we should be aware that a few simple 
>> command line tools can be configured to automatically format a file 
>> before we create a webrev image.
>>
> I think the tricky thing here, based on what Alan & I said earlier, is 
> that the tools can massage the whole file.  I don't know of tools that 
> have rules like that.  Anyone else?
>
> Jim
>> I use "indent -i4 -bli4 fubar.java". Or if I need to format a section 
>> of a non conforming file, I open it in emacs, select the region then 
>> hit the tab key. indent is especially useful because it will convert 
>> a sows ear into a silk purse.
>>
>> I didn't intend to start a discussion about various IDEs, although 
>> they ought to be configured correctly too.
>>
>> If I know the rules for massaging code (do they exist?), the I can 
>> post the configurations for various tools (vi, emacs, indent, 
>> eclipse, netbeans, etc.) on one of our wikis, and no one needs to 
>> worry about this anymore. Maybe they're already there?
>>
>> John
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: jim.gish at oracle.com
>> To: chris.hegarty at oracle.com
>> Cc: discuss at openjdk.java.net, net-dev at openjdk.java.net
>> Sent: Friday, September 14, 2012 1:24:06 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
>> Subject: Re: Indenting code?
>>
>> While it is true that NB and Eclipse and other IDEs offer auto 
>> formatting and that will suit some us, I also no that there are some 
>> amongst us who still use emacs and vi and possibly other non-IDE 
>> editors.  The first thing to agree on is what standard are we coding 
>> to.  I had assumed it was the old Sun Java coding standards ( 
>> http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/codeconv-138413.html)
>>
>> Is that the case?
>>
>> If not, I suggest that we /don't /open this up to a full-fledged 
>> discussion of what the standard should be. I've been involved in far 
>> too many such religious debates over the years that end up reminding 
>> me of the famous Belushi-esque food fight scene from Animal House.  
>> Instead, if any question on any one individual point comes up, we 
>> look at the predominate approach in the existing code and use that.
>>
>> As Alan points out, local consistency is important to maintain. In 
>> the unlikely event that an entire piece of code is rewritten, then 
>> it's ok to bring it up to the current standard, otherwise don't mess 
>> with it.  In other words, there are more important things to consider 
>> than whether any one piece of code meets the standard.  Although that 
>> would be ideal, we do have to consider the consequences of major 
>> formatting changes, since those will impact the ease of interpreting 
>> diffs, and far more significant, ability to manage merging.
>>
>> If we agree that the old Sun Java coding standards are what we /are 
>> mostly/ using, then we can identify formatting templates for the 
>> major IDEs, and other tools as needed.
>>
>> ....Jim
>>
>> Also, this is broader than net-dev, so I'm moving the discussion to 
>> discuss at openjdk.java.net. Please respond there.
>> On 09/14/2012 12:27 PM, Chris Hegarty wrote:
>>
>>     On 14/09/12 12:20, Alan Bateman wrote:
>>
>>         On 14/09/2012 01:21, Brad Wetmore wrote:
>>
>>             Netbean's automatic formatting does a pretty good job with
>>             new code.
>>             However, I think the general advice is to not change
>>             existing code
>>             just because.  When you're dealing with multiple release
>>             families, it
>>             makes the merges much more difficult.
>>
>>             Brad
>>
>>         One think that Paul Sandoz suggested recently is that we
>>         should have a
>>         NB template that folks can use to avoid some
>>         discussions/debates on
>>         styles. It would be great for someone to run with that, the
>>         hard part is
>>         of course that it will be impossible to get agreement.
>>         Personally I find
>>         NB's defaults okay but there are several cases where its
>>         indenting is
>>         horrible.
>>
>>
>>     I did play with NB somewhat trying to get it follow, exactly, the
>>     preferred style in some areas of the JDK code. I was able to get
>>     it close, or at least better than the default, but I don't believe
>>     it is possible to get it to do exactly what we want.
>>
>>     -Chris.
>>
>>         Anyway, the main advice I think is to keep things locally
>>         consistent
>>         where possible. Also major refactoring or formatting in a bug
>>         fix is a
>>         royal pain for reviewers.
>>
>>         -Alan
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> Jim Gish | Consulting Member of Technical Staff | +1.781.442.0304
>> Oracle Java Platform Group | Core Libraries Team
>> 35 Network Drive
>> Burlington, MA 01803
>> jim.gish at oracle.com
>

-- 
Jim Gish | Consulting Member of Technical Staff | +1.781.442.0304
Oracle Java Platform Group | Core Libraries Team
35 Network Drive
Burlington, MA 01803
jim.gish at oracle.com