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Once you get used to tools like `go fmt` or Perl::Tidy it feels barbaric not to be able to cleanly format all your code instantly. Read only linters are nice but something that can reformat code is much nicer.

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Clang-format aims to provide this for C++.

http://clang.llvm.org/docs/ClangFormat.html http://www.irill.org/videos/euro-llvm-2013/jasper-hires.webm

While reading the article, I also thought why they didn't at least mention it (and why they abandoned the idea).

It's powerful, fast and will most likely be the base for a lot of {h,l}inting in editors/IDE's moving forward.

edit: Somehow missed that they mentioned Clang not being mature enough when starting this project.

http://astyle.sourceforge.net/ linters are more important that pretty formatting to my mind. c++ has had both linters and reformatters for a long time.

I suppose the distinction is that they are not built in.

Huh? You know that a linter is not a formatter, right?

Pretty sure he does. His comment only makes sense in that context.

I guess I just don't see that. perltidy and lint(s) are completely nonoverlapping, to my knowledge. Something that can reformat your code doesn't even do the same job as a linter.

I'm not really following you. It's very common for linters to flag stylistic and formatting issues.

Ah well, perhaps it's just a difference in experience. I've never used a linter (there are countless linters) that fixed indentation, arranged if statements, and inserted newlines to wrap long lines. Nor has a formatter ever helped me find the sort of issues I use a linter to find.

There is overlap. I once lost a fair amount of time because some dimwit predecessor thought putting anything other than a space after commas was acceptable. (It sounds ridiculous but it's true. I can explain if you care.)

So: a formatter will, for example, make sure your lines are indented to some standard amount of indentation, a linter will bitch if they are not, and both the formatter and the linter should DTRT when they identify certain indefensible coding practices.

I wouldn't want to reach for lint to handle formatting, that is what indent is for. That is to say, lint should not complain that the if should contain a space before the (.

I agree in that case, but when it comes to commas, using spaces in a certain way is objectively better.

well there is clang-format and clang-tidy and they are really easy to set up in CMake (I use "make format").

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