gofmt consistency improvements

[Matt Ho]

We love gofmt as a tool, especially the way it aligns declarations and assignments on things like structs and maps.  I think this adds significantly to readability.  

The proposal is to extend the struct and map alignment to include var and := declarations to make formatting more consistent.

For example:

abc := 123

d := 456

Becomes

abc := 123

d   := 456

To keep things simple, this would only be for := that appear in sequence or = that appear in sequence.  

So this:

abc := 123

d = 456

Is left alone as := and = don't interact with each other.  I'd also suggest that var = and plain = don't interact either.  So:

abc  = 123

var def = 456

Would also be left alone as = and var = wouldn't interact.

Here are some other examples:

a.b.c = 1

a.d = 2

a.e.f.g = "hello"

h, i = 1, 2

Becomes:

a.b.c   = 1

a.d     = 2

a.e.f.g = "hello"

h, i    = 1, 2

Vars would be treated much like structs with the field, type, and metadata being aligned.

var a string = "string"

var a,b int = 1,2

Becomes

var a    string = "string"

var a, b int    = 1,2

This would use the same rules as structs and maps for determining when to continue alignment and when alignment should be broken up because its too large.

Thoughts?

[jerome....@gmail.com]

Hello,
For short assignment, you can use:
var (
ab = 1
c = 2
)

[Jan Mercl]

On Sun, Jan 21, 2018 at 5:54 AM Matt Ho <mat...@gmail.com> wrote:

 

For example:

abc := 123

d := 456

Becomes

abc := 123

d   := 456

No, no, no, please no.

--

-j

[Steven Hartland]

Please no, alignment formatting is horrible as it makes simple changes that add new lines introduce many unneeded changes making it much harder to see the real changes in diffs.

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[Matt Ho]

This is really the same formatting that gofmt already does, just applied to a wider scope.

[Jan Mercl]

On Mon, Jan 22, 2018 at 2:32 AM Matt Ho <mat...@gmail.com> wrote:

> This is really the same formatting that gofmt already does, just applied to a wider scope.

No. Gofmt does this only for declarations wrapped in a block inside parenthesis. The proposal is to do it for statements within normal code. For a block of declarations it's okay, but tabular layout of statements makes no sense to me.

--

-j

[John Souvestre]

Some compare programs have a switch which ignores differences in spacing.

 

John

    John Souvestre - New Orleans LA

[Seth W. Klein]

If you want alignment of a block of variables, you can use a var block:

```
package main

import (
"fmt"
)

func main() {
var (
one = 1
three = 3
)
fmt.Println(i + j)
}

```

https://play.golang.org/p/HZTO3Elkx04

[wells.n...@gmail.com]

I really like this idea - it makes it much easier to visually scan down a list of assignments and compare the values from line to line.

another change I'd like to see would be to indent function arguments not on the same line as the function declaration by an extra tab so that they don't line up with the first line of the function body 

[Jim Robinson]

I wouldn't like that.  I use an editor that uses a variable width font and attempts at 'alignment' detracts from readability.

[Nick Wells]

Hi Jim, surely with a variable width font you don't care about alignment. Gofmt already aligns structs so it's just a small extension of that

Nick

On Thu, 1 Feb 2018 at 18:22, Jim Robinson <jim.ro...@gmail.com> wrote:

I wouldn't like that.  I use an editor that uses a variable width font and attempts at 'alignment' detracts from readability.

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[James A. Robinson]

Well, I'm just registering a comment that for me alignment would 'make it worse' rather than 'make it better.' :)

[Ralph Corderoy]

Hi,

These `format wars' are not worthy of golang-dev IMHO. Could they be
thrashed out, and very probably shot down, on nuts or a Github Go2
issue? I'm sure alignment of the type suggested was well considered by
Go's designers, and quite possibly argued about ad nauseam by the coffee
machine, for `go fmt's benefit so we wouldn't have to suffer. :-)

--
Cheers, Ralph.
https://plus.google.com/+RalphCorderoy

[Robert Griesemer]

Thanks for your suggestion, Ralph. Agreed.

That said, I do keep an eye on gofmt issues filed via the issue tracker (that doesn't mean they will all get accepted). If we ever get to an overhaul/modernization of gofmt, we will certainly review those issues. And every once in a while I do fix minor issues that come up. So please keep high-quality feedback coming. Thanks.

- gri

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[yogesh...@tokopedia.com]

I would also want to see the formatting as Jan Mercl suggested. I believe it makes the code more readable and makes sense to have such kind of formatting in normal code. Though "gofmt" does it for a block of variables or struct declarations.