Hello,
it was discussed during the last irc devel meeting and everyone there agreed to use clang-format to format the source code:
- https://clang.llvm.org/docs/ClangFormat.html
Is any developer (maybe not present during the irc devel meeting) opposing this?
It is not going to be all at once, because some of the structures and initialization of them may be preferred to be kept with a custom format for being easier to read -- to have a section in the file not formatted, it has to be enclosed in between comments:
/* clang-format off */
...
/* clang-format o. */
But for the rest of the code (i.e., functions) I think it will be better to agree on a format and try to use it. The clang-formatting should be done when one needs to update code in some files.
Over the years, developers come and go, having each one with a custom formatting style is hard to maintain properly in long term. There are modules that do not indent coherently code inside blocks, using a mixture, more or less no style. This makes it hard for other developers to review in case of reported issues, but also for new comers to get familiar with the code.
In the source tree there is already a .clang-format file which defines the options for formatting.
It was used by me and other developers already -- I did it mainly in my modules or those components that do not have an active maintainer. But I plan to do it also on the components that have currently a maintainer at the moment I need to work on that code (e.g., fix some issue or export functions to kemi framework).
My process of clang-formatting a module is like:
- edit the files to add clang-format off/on comments around the parts I want to preserve as they are (typically mod exports -- params, functions, kemi -- and intialization of structures that are aligned to a specific indentation that makes it easier to read).
- run: clang-format -i src/modules/modname/*.{c,h}
- commit with these changes, no new feature or bug fix must be done in the same commit (can be combined with removing the history comments)
If one wants different options inside .clang-format, please propose and let's discuss which one is preferred by the majority of the current developers.
If no one shows anything against in a matter of few days, it will be considered accepted (after all, one can re-indent on own style if the rule is not accepted or overturned).
Cheers, Daniel