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+The dart_style package defines an automatic, opinionated formatter for Dart |
+code. It replaces the whitespace in your program with what it deems to be the |
+best formatting for it. Resulting code should following the [Dart style guide][] |
+but, moreso, should look nice to most human readers, most of the time. |
+ |
+[dart style guide]: https://www.dartlang.org/articles/style-guide/ |
+ |
+It handles indentation, inline whitespace and (by far the most difficult), |
+intelligent line wrapping. It has no problems with nested collections, function |
+expressions, long argument lists, or otherwise tricky code. |
+ |
+## Usage |
+ |
+The package exposes a simple command-line wrapper around the core formatting |
+library. The easiest way to invoke it is to [globally activate][] the package |
+and let pub put its executable on your path: |
+ |
+ $ pub global activate dart_style |
+ $ dartfmt ... |
+ |
+[globally activate]: https://www.dartlang.org/tools/pub/cmd/pub-global.html |
+ |
+If you don't want `dartformat` on your path, you can run it explicitly: |
+ |
+ $ pub global activate dart_style --no-executables |
+ $ pub global run dart_style:format ... |
+ |
+The formatter takes a list of paths, which can point to directories or files. |
+If the path is a directory, it processes every `.dart` file in that directory |
+or any of its subdirectories. |
+ |
+By default, it formats each file and just prints the resulting code to stdout. |
+If you pass `-w`, it will instead overwrite your existing files with the |
+formatted results. |
+ |
+You may pass a `--line-length` option to control the width of the page that it |
+wraps lines to fit within, but you're strongly encouraged to keep the default |
+line length of 80 columns. |
+ |
+### Validating files |
+ |
+If you want to use the formatter in something like a [presubmit script][] or |
+[commit hook][], you can use the `--dry-run` option. If you pass that, the |
+formatter prints the paths of the files whose contents would change if the |
+formatter were run normally. If it prints no output, then everything is already |
+correctly formatted. |
+ |
+[presubmit script]: http://www.chromium.org/developers/how-tos/depottools/presubmit-scripts |
+[commit hook]: http://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Customizing-Git-Git-Hooks |
+ |
+### Using it programmatically |
+ |
+The package also exposes a single dart_style library containing a programmatic |
+API for formatting code. Simple usage looks like this: |
+ |
+ import 'package:dart_style/dart_style.dart'; |
+ |
+ main() { |
+ var formatter = new DartFormatter(); |
+ |
+ try { |
+ print(formatter.format(""" |
+ library an_entire_compilation_unit; |
+ |
+ class SomeClass {} |
+ """)); |
+ |
+ print(formatter.formatStatement("aSingle(statement);")); |
+ } on FormatterException catch (ex) { |
+ print(ex); |
+ } |
+ } |
+ |
+## FAQ |
+ |
+### Why have a formatter? |
+ |
+The has a few goals, in order of descending priority: |
+ |
+1. **Produce consistently formatted code.** Consistent style improves |
+ readability because you aren't distracted by variance in style between |
+ different parts of a program. It makes it easier to contribute to others' |
+ code because their style will already be familiar to you. |
+ |
+2. **End debates about style issues in code reviews.** This consumes an |
+ astonishingly large quantity of very valuable engineering energy. Style |
+ debates are time-consuming, upset people, and rarely change anyone's mind. |
+ They make code reviews take longer and be more acromonious. |
+ |
+3. **Free users from having to think about and apply formatting.** When |
+ writing code, you don't have to try to figure out the best way to split a |
+ line and then pain-stakingly add in the line breaks. When you do a global |
+ refactor that changes the length of some identifier, you don't have to go |
+ back and rewrap all of the lines. When you're in the zone, you can just |
+ pump out code and let the formatter tidy it up for you as you go. |
+ |
+4. **Produce beautiful, readable output that helps users understand the code.** |
+ We could solve all of the above goals with a formatter that just removed |
+ *all* whitespace, but that wouldn't be very human-friendly. So, finally, |
+ the formatter tries very hard to produce output that is not just consistent |
+ but readable to a human. It tries to use indentation and line breaks to |
+ highlight the structure and organization of the code. |
+ |
+ In several cases, the formatter has pointed out bugs where the existing |
+ indentation was misleading and didn't represent what the code actually did. |
+ For example, automated formatted would have helped make Apple's |
+ ["gotofail"][gotofail] security bug easier to notice: |
+ |
+ ```c |
+ if ((err = SSLHashSHA1.update(&hashCtx, &signedParams)) != 0) |
+ goto fail; |
+ goto fail; |
+ if ((err = SSLHashSHA1.final(&hashCtx, &hashOut)) != 0) |
+ goto fail; |
+ ``` |
+ |
+ The formatter would change this to: |
+ |
+ ```c |
+ if ((err = SSLHashSHA1.update(&hashCtx, &signedParams)) != 0) |
+ goto fail; |
+ goto fail; // <-- not clearly not under the "if". |
+ if ((err = SSLHashSHA1.final(&hashCtx, &hashOut)) != 0) |
+ goto fail; |
+ ``` |
+ |
+[gotofail]: https://gotofail.com/ |
+ |
+### I don't like the output! |
+ |
+First of all, that's not a question. But, yes, sometimes you may dislike the |
+output of the formatter. This may be a bug or it may be a deliberate stylistic |
+choice of the formatter that you disagree with. The simplest way to find out is |
+to file an [issue][]. |
+ |
+[issue]: https://github.com/dart-lang/dart_style/issues |
+ |
+Now that the formatter is fairly mature, it's more likely that the output is |
+deliberate. If your bug gets closed as "as designed", try not to be too sad. |
+Even if the formatter doesn't follow your personal preferences, what it *does* |
+do is spare you the effort of hand-formatting, and ensure your code is |
+*consistently* formatted. I hope you'll appreciate the real value in both of |
+those. |
+ |
+### How stable is it? |
+ |
+You can rely on the formatter to not break your code or change its semantics. |
+If it does do so, this is a critical bug and we'll fix it quickly. |
+ |
+The rules the formatter uses to determine the "best" way to split a line may |
+change over time. We don't promise that code produced by the formatter today |
+will be identical to the same code run through a later version of the formatter. |
+We do hope that you'll like the output of the later version more. |
+ |
+### Why can't I tell the formatter to ignore a region of code? |
+ |
+Even a really sophisticated formatter can't beat a human in *all* cases. Our |
+semantic knowledge of the code can let us show more than the formatter can. One |
+escape hatch would be to have a comment telling the formatter "leave this |
+alone". |
+ |
+This might help the fourth goal above, but does so at the expense of the first |
+three. We want code that is *consistent* and we want you to stop thinking about |
+formatting. If you can decide to turn off the formatter, now you have regions |
+of code that are inconsistent by design. |
+ |
+Further, you're right back into debates about how the code in there should be |
+formatted, with the extra bonus of now debating whether or not that annotation |
+should be used and where. None of this is making your life better. |
+ |
+Yes, *maybe* you can hand-format some things better than the formatter. (Though, |
+in most cases where users have asked for this, I've seen formatting errors in |
+the examples they provided!) But does doing that really add enough value to |
+make up for re-opening that can of worms? |
+ |
+### Why does the formatter mess up my collection literals? |
+ |
+Large collection literals are often used to define big chunks of structured |
+data, like: |
+ |
+```dart |
+/// Maps ASCII character values to what kind of character they represent. |
+const characterTypes = const [ |
+ other, other, other, other, other, other, other, other, |
+ other, white, white, other, other, white, |
+ other, other, other, other, other, other, other, other, |
+ other, other, other, other, other, other, other, other, |
+ other, other, white, |
+ punct, other, punct, punct, punct, punct, other, |
+ brace, brace, punct, punct, comma, punct, punct, punct, |
+ digit, digit, digit, digit, digit, |
+ digit, digit, digit, digit, digit, |
+ punct, punct, punct, punct, punct, punct, punct, |
+ alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, |
+ alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, |
+ alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, |
+ alpha, alpha, brace, punct, brace, punct, alpha, other, |
+ alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, |
+ alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, |
+ alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, |
+ alpha, alpha, brace, punct, brace, punct |
+]; |
+``` |
+ |
+The formatter doesn't know those newlines are meaningful, so it wipes it out |
+to: |
+ |
+```dart |
+/// Maps ASCII character values to what kind of character they represent. |
+const characterTypes = const [ |
+ other, |
+ other, |
+ other, |
+ |
+ // lots more ... |
+ |
+ punct, |
+ brace, |
+ punct |
+]; |
+``` |
+ |
+In many cases, ignoring these newlines is a good thing. If you've removed a few |
+items from a list, it's a win for the formatter to repack it into one line if |
+it fits. But here it clearly loses useful information. |
+ |
+Fortunately, in most cases, structured collections like this have comments |
+describing their structure: |
+ |
+```dart |
+const characterTypes = const [ |
+ other, other, other, other, other, other, other, other, |
+ other, white, white, other, other, white, |
+ other, other, other, other, other, other, other, other, |
+ other, other, other, other, other, other, other, other, |
+ other, other, white, |
+ punct, other, punct, punct, punct, punct, other, // !"#$%&ยด |
+ brace, brace, punct, punct, comma, punct, punct, punct, // ()*+,-./ |
+ digit, digit, digit, digit, digit, // 01234 |
+ digit, digit, digit, digit, digit, // 56789 |
+ punct, punct, punct, punct, punct, punct, punct, // :;<=>?@ |
+ alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, // ABCDEFGH |
+ alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, |
+ alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, |
+ alpha, alpha, brace, punct, brace, punct, alpha, other, // YZ[\]^_' |
+ alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, // abcdefgh |
+ alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, |
+ alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha, |
+ alpha, alpha, brace, punct, brace, punct // yz{|}~ |
+]; |
+``` |
+ |
+In that case, the formatter is smart enough to recognize this and preserve your |
+original newlines. So, if you have a collection that you have carefully split |
+into lines, add at least one line comment somewhere inside it to get it to |
+preserve all of the newlines in it. |
+ |
+### Why doesn't the formatter handle multi-line `if` statements better? |
+ |
+If you have a statement like: |
+ |
+```dart |
+if (someVeryLongConditional || anotherLongConditional) function(argument, argument); |
+``` |
+ |
+It will format it like: |
+ |
+```dart |
+if (someVeryLongConditional || anotherLongConditional) function( |
+ argument, argument); |
+``` |
+ |
+You might expect it to break before `function`. But the Dart style guide |
+explicitly forbids multi-line `if` statements that do not use `{}` bodies. |
+Given that, there's never a reason for the formatter to allow splitting after |
+the condition. This is true of other control flow statements too, of course. |
+ |
+### Why doesn't the formatter add curlies or otherwise clean up code then? |
+ |
+The formatter has a simple, restricted charter: it rewrites *only the |
+non-semantic whitespace of your program.* It makes absolutely no other changes |
+to your code. |
+ |
+This helps keep the scope of the project limited. The set of "clean-ups" you |
+may want to do is unbounded and much fuzzier to define. |
+ |
+It also makes it more reliable to run the formatter automatically in things |
+like presubmit scripts where a human may not be vetting the output. If the |
+formatter only touches whitespace, it's easier for a human to trust its output. |