A code formatter with rules set in stone.
Runic is a formatter for the Julia programming language built on top of JuliaSyntax.jl.
Similarly to gofmt
, Runic have no configuration. The
formatting rules are set in stone (although not yet complete). This approach is something
that is appreciated by most Go programmers, see for example the following
quote:
Gofmt's style is no one's favorite, yet gofmt is everyone's favorite.
Runic can be installed with Julia's package manager:
julia -e 'using Pkg; Pkg.add("Runic")'
For CLI usage and editor integration (see Usage) it is recommended to install
Runic in a separate project such as e.g. the shared project @runic
:
julia --project=@runic -e 'using Pkg; Pkg.add("Runic")'
The main interface to Runic is the command line interface (CLI) through the main
function
invoked with the -m
flag. See the output of julia -m Runic --help
below for usage
details.
The following snippet can be added to your shell startup file so that the CLI can be invoked
a bit more ergonomically. This assumes Runic is installed in the @runic
shared project as
suggested in the Installation section above. Adjust the --project
flag if
you installed Runic elsewhere.
alias runic="julia --project=@runic -m Runic"
[!NOTE] The
-m
command line flag is only available in Julia 1.12 and later. In earlier versions you have to invoke themain
function explicitly, for example:julia -e 'using Runic; exit(Runic.main(ARGS))' -- <args>
For this incantation the following shell alias can be used:
alias runic="julia --project=@runic -e 'using Runic; exit(Runic.main(ARGS))' --"
$ runic --help
NAME
Runic.main - format Julia source code
SYNOPSIS
julia -m Runic [<options>] <path>...
DESCRIPTION
`Runic.main` (typically invoked as `julia -m Runic`) formats Julia source
code using the Runic.jl formatter.
OPTIONS
<path>...
Input path(s) (files and/or directories) to process. For directories,
all files (recursively) with the '*.jl' suffix are used as input files.
If no path is given, or if path is `-`, input is read from stdin.
-c, --check
Do not write output and exit with a non-zero code if the input is not
formatted correctly.
-d, --diff
Print the diff between the input and formatted output to stderr.
Requires `git` to be installed.
--help
Print this message.
-i, --inplace
Format files in place.
-o <file>, --output=<file>
File to write formatted output to. If no output is given, or if the file
is `-`, output is written to stdout.
In addition to the CLI there is also the two function Runic.format_file
and
Runic.format_string
. See their respective docstrings for details.
Most code editors have code formatting capabilities and many can be configured to use Runic. Example configuration for some editors are given in the following sections.
[!IMPORTANT] Note that these configurations depend on third party plugins. They works as advertised but use it at your own risk.
Runic can be used as a formatter in Neovim using conform.nvim. Refer to the conform.nvim repository for installation and setup instructions.
Runic is not (yet) available directly in conform so the following configuration needs
to be passed to the setup function. This assumes Runic is installed in the @runic
shared
project as suggested in the Installation section above. Adjust the
--project
flag if you installed Runic elsewhere.
require("conform").setup({
formatters = {
runic = {
command = "julia",
args = {"--project=@runic", "-e", "using Runic; exit(Runic.main(ARGS))"},
},
},
formatters_by_ft = {
julia = {"runic"},
},
default_format_opts = {
-- Increase the timeout in case Runic needs to precompile
-- (e.g. after upgrading Julia and/or Runic).
timeout_ms = 10000,
},
})
Note that conform (and thus Runic) can be used as formatexpr
for the gq
command. This is
enabled by adding the following to your configuration:
vim.o.formatexpr = "v:lua.require('conform').formatexpr()"
Runic can be used as a formatter in VS Code using the extension Custom Local Formatters.
After installing the extension you can configure Runic as a local formatter by adding the
following entry to your settings.json
:
"customLocalFormatters.formatters": [
{
"command": "julia --project=@runic -e 'using Runic; exit(Runic.main(ARGS))'",
"languages": ["julia"]
}
]
Using the "Format Document" VS Code command will now format the file using Runic. Note that the first time you execute the command you will be prompted to select a formatter since the Julia language extension also comes with a formatter.
Runic can be used as a formatter in Emacs using apheleia. Refer to the apheleia repository for installation and setup instruction.
Runic is not (yet) available directly in apheleia so the
following configuration needs to be added to your .emacs
.
This assumes that Runic is installed in the @runic
shared project as suggested in the Installation section above.
(push `(runic . ("julia" "--project=@runic" "-e" "using Runic; exit(Runic.main(ARGS))" "--")) apheleia-formatters)
(push '(julia-mode . runic) apheleia-mode-alist)
Here is a checklist for adopting Runic formatting in a project:
runic -i <path>
and commit the changes in separate
commit. This commit can be ignored in git blame
(see Ignore formatting commits in git
blame).When setting up Runic formatting for a repository for the first time (or when upgrading to a
new version of Runic) the formatting commit will likely result in a large diff with mostly
non functional changes such as e.g. whitespace. Since the diff is large it is likely that it
will show up and interfere when using git-blame
. To
ignore commits during git-blame
you can i) add them to a file .git-blame-ignore-revs
and
ii) tell git to use this file as ignore file by running
git config blame.ignoreRevsFile .git-blame-ignore-revs
See the git-blame documentation for details.
For example, such a file may look like this:
# Adding Runic formatting
<commit hash of formatting commit>
# Upgrading Runic from 1.0 to 2.0
<commit hash of formatting commit>
If you want to show that your project is formatted with Runic you can add the following badge in the repository README:
[![code style: runic](https://img.shields.io/badge/code_style-%E1%9A%B1%E1%9A%A2%E1%9A%BE%E1%9B%81%E1%9A%B2-black)](https://github.com/fredrikekre/Runic.jl)
Runic has a check-mode that verifies whether files are correctly formatted or not. This mode
is enabled with the --check
flag. In check mode Runic will exit with a non-zero code if
any of the input files are incorrectly formatted. As an example, the following invocation
can be used:
git ls-files -z -- '*.jl' | xargs -0 --no-run-if-empty julia --project=@runic -m Runic --check --diff
This will run Runic's check mode (--check
) on all .jl
files in the repository and print
the diff (--diff
) if the files are not formatted correctly. If any file is incorrectly
formatted the exit code will be non-zero.
You can use fredrikekre/runic-action
to run
Runic on Github Actions:
name: Runic formatting
on:
push:
branches:
- 'master'
- 'release-'
tags:
- '*'
pull_request:
jobs:
runic:
name: Runic
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v4
# - uses: julia-actions/setup-julia@v2
# with:
# version: '1'
# - uses: julia-actions/cache@v2
- uses: fredrikekre/runic-action@v1
with:
version: '1'
See fredrikekre/runic-action
for details.
[!IMPORTANT] Please be aware of Runic's version policy when configuring the version. Pinning to a major release (as above with
version: '1'
) may cause occasional CI failures whenever there is a new minor release of Runic that happens to impact your code base. When this happens you simply have to i) re-run Runic on the new version, ii) commit the result, and iii) add the commit to the ignore list. This is still recommended since minor releases should be relatively rare, and if you use Runic you presumably want these minor bugfixes to be applied to your code base. The alternative is to pin to a minor version and manually upgrade to new minor versions.
Runic can be used together with pre-commit
using
fredrikekre/runic-pre-commit
. After
installing pre-commit
you can add the following to your .pre-commit-config.yaml
to run
Runic before each commit:
repos:
- repo: https://github.com/fredrikekre/runic-pre-commit
rev: v1.0.0
hooks:
- id: runic
See fredrikekre/runic-pre-commit
for
details.
If you don't want to use pre-commit
you can also use a plain git hook. Here is an example
hook (.git/hooks/pre-commit
):
#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Redirect output to stderr.
exec 1>&2
# Run Runic on added and modified files
git diff-index -z --name-only --diff-filter=AM master | \
grep -z '\.jl$' | \
xargs -0 --no-run-if-empty julia --project=@runic -m Runic --check --diff
Runic adheres to Semantic Versioning. Semantic versioning is easy to apply and understand when it comes to the API (e.g. the CLI and public methods of the Runic library) but it is less clear how to apply it to changes in the formatted output. Runic makes the following policy:
1.0.x
and 1.0.(x + 1)
. Patch releases are therefore
limited to fixing bugs that caused the formatter to error.This is a list of things that Runic currently is doing:
return
in
instead of ∈
and =
where
It is possible to toggle formatting around expressions where you want to disable Runic's formatting. This can be useful in cases where manual formatting increase the readability of the code. For example, manually aligned array literals may look worse when formatted by Runic.
The source comments # runic: off
and # runic: on
will toggle the formatting off and on,
respectively. The comments must be on their own line, they must be on the same level in the
syntax tree, and they must come in pairs. An exception to the pairing rule is made at top
level where a # runic: off
comment will disable formatting for the remainder of the file.
This is so that a full file can be excluded from formatting without having to add a
# runic: on
comment at the end of the file.
[!NOTE] Note that it is enough that a comment contain the substring
# runic: off
or# runic: on
so that they can be combined with other "pragmas" such as e.g. Literate.jl line filters like#src
.[!NOTE] For compatibility with JuliaFormatter the comments
#! format: off
and#! format: on
are also recognized by Runic.
For example, the following code will toggle off the formatting for the array literal A
:
function foo()
a = rand(2)
# runic: off
A = [
-1.00 1.41
3.14 -4.05
]
# runic: on
return A * a
end
No. Use your Enter key or refactor your code.
The body of blocklike expressions (e.g. if
, for
, while
, function
, struct
, etc.)
always start and end with a newline. Examples:
-if c x end
+if c
+ x
+end
-function f(x) x^2 end
+function f(x)
+ x^2
+end
An exception is made for empty blocks so that e.g.
struct A end
is allowed.
Consistently four spaces for each indentation level.
Standard code blocks (function
, for
, while
, ...) all increase the indentation level by
one until the closing end
. Examples:
function f()
- for i in 1:2
- # loop
- end
- while rand() < 0.5
- # loop
- end
+ for i in 1:2
+ # loop
+ end
+ while rand() < 0.5
+ # loop
+ end
end
Listlike expressions like e.g. tuples, function calls, array literals, etc. also increase the indentation level by one until the closing token. This only has an effect if the list span multiple lines. Examples:
x = (
- a, b, c, d,
- e, f, g, h,
+ a, b, c, d,
+ e, f, g, h,
)
foo(
- a, b, c, d,
- e, f, g, h,
+ a, b, c, d,
+ e, f, g, h,
)
[
- a, b, c, d,
- e, f, g, h,
+ a, b, c, d,
+ e, f, g, h,
]
The examples above both result in "hard" indentation levels. Other expressions that span multiple lines result in "soft" indentation levels. The difference between the two is that soft indentation levels don't nest (this is really only applicable to multiline operator call chains).
using Foo:
- foo, bar
+ foo, bar
x = a + b +
- c
+ c
x = a ? b :
- c
+ c
Without soft indentation levels operators chains can result in ugly (but logically correct) indentation levels. For example, the following code:
x = a + b *
c +
d
would be "correct". Such a chain looks better the way it is currently formatted:
x = a + b *
c +
d
return
Explicit return
statements are ensured in function and macro definitions by adding
return
in front of the last expression, with some exceptions listed below.
for
or while
loop (which both always evaluate to
nothing
) return
is added after the loop.if
or try
block the return
is only added in case
there is no return
inside any of the branches.let
or begin
block the return
is only added in case
there is no return
inside the block.return
is only added in case there is no
return
inside the macro.return
is added in short form functions (f(...) = ...
), short form anonymous
functions ((...) -> ...
), and do
-blocks (f(...) do ...; ...; end
).throw
or error
, no return
is added. This is because it is already obvious that these calls
terminate the function and don't return any value.Note that adding return
changes the expression in a way that is visible to macros.
Therefore it is, in general, not valid to add return
to a function defined inside a macro
since it isn't possible to know what the macro will expand to. For this reason this
formatting rule is disabled for functions defined inside macros with the exception of some
known and safe ones from Base (e.g. @inline
, @generated
, ...).
For the same reason mentioned above, if the last expression in a function is a macro call it
isn't valid to step in and add return
inside. Instead the return
will be added in front
of the macro call like any other expression (unless there is already a return
inside of
the macro as described above).
Examples:
function f(n)
- sum(rand(n))
+ return sum(rand(n))
end
macro m(args...)
- :(generate_expr(args...))
+ return :(generate_expr(args...))
end
if
or try
block it might be better to
recurse into the branches and add return
there. Looking at real code, if a
function ends with an if
block, it seems about 50/50 whether adding return
after the block or adding return inside the branches is the best choice.
Quite often return if
is not the best but at least Runic's current
formatting will force to think about the return value.
See issue #52.Runic formats spaces around infix operators, assignments, comparison chains, and type
comparisons (binary <:
and >:
), and some other operator-like things. If the space is
missing it will be inserted, if there are multiple spaces it will be reduced to one.
Examples:
-1+2*3
-1 + 2 * 3
+1 + 2 * 3
+1 + 2 * 3
-x=1
-x=+1
-x+=1
-x.+=1
+x = 1
+x = +1
+x += 1
+x .+= 1
-1<2>3
-1 < 2 > 3
+1 < 2 > 3
+1 < 2 > 3
-T<:Integer
-T >: Integer
+T <: Integer
+T >: Integer
-x->x
-a ? b : c
+x -> x
+a ? b : c
Note that since Runic's rules are applied consistently, no matter the context or surrounding code, the "spaces around assignment" rule also means that there will be spaces in keyword arguments in function definitions and calls. Examples:
-foo(; a=1) = a
-foo(a=1)
+foo(; a = 1) = a
+foo(a = 1)
Exceptions to the rule above are :
, ^
, ::
, and unary <:
and >:
. These are
formatted without spaces around them. Examples:
-a : b
+a:b
-a ^ 5
+a^5
-a :: Int
+a::Int
-<: Integer
->: Integer
+<:Integer
+>:Integer
Consistently use single space around keywords. Examples:
-struct Foo
+struct Foo
-mutable struct Bar
+mutable struct Bar
-function foo(x::T) where {T}
+function foo(x::T) where {T}
Listlike expressions (tuples, function calls/definitions, array literals, etc.) that already span multiple lines are formatted to consistently have a leading and a trailing newline. Trailing commas are enforced for array/tuple literals (where adding another item is common) but optional for function/macro calls/definitions.
-(a,
- b)
+(
+ a,
+ b,
+)
-foo(a,
- b)
+foo(
+ a,
+ b
+)
-[1 2
- 3 4]
+[
+ 1 2
+ 3 4
+]
Note that currently there is no line-length limit employed so expressions that only take up a single line, even if they are long, are not formatted like the above. Thus, only expressions where the original author have "committed" to mulitples lines are affected by this rule.
Listlike expressions (tuples, function calls/definitions, array literals, etc.) use a
consistent rule of no space before ,
and a single space after ,
. Trailing commas are
enforced for array/tuple literals (where adding another item is common) but optional for
function/macro calls/definitions. Leading/trailing spaces are removed. Examples:
-f(a,b)
-(a,b)
-[a, b]
+f(a, b)
+(a, b)
+[a, b]
-(a,b,)
+(a, b)
(
a,
- b
+ b,
)
-( a, b )
+(a, b)
Trailing semicolons are removed in the body of blocklike expressions. Examples
function f(x)
- y = x^2;
- z = y^2; # z = x^4
- return z;
+ y = x^2
+ z = y^2 # z = x^4
+ return z
end
Trailing semicolons at top level and module level are kept since they are sometimes used there for output supression (e.g. Documenter examples or scripts that are copy-pasted/included in the REPL).
Floating point literals are normalized so that they:
e
instead of E
for the exponentExamples:
-1.
-.1
+1.0
+0.1
-01.2
-1.0e01
-0.10
+1.2
+1.0e1
+0.1
-1.2E5
+1.2e5
+
for the exponent part, i.e. 1.0e+1
instead of 1.0e1
.
Discussed in issue #13.1.00
to 1.0
.
Such trailing zeros are sometimes used to align numbers in literal array expressions.
Discussed in issue #14.Hex literals are padded with zeros to better highlight the resulting type of the literal:
UInt8
to 2 characters, UInt16
to 4 characters, UInt32
to 8 characters etc. Examples:
-0x1
-0x123
-0x12345
+0x01
+0x0123
+0x00012345
Add parentheses around operator calls in colon expressions to better highlight the low
precedence of :
. Examples:
-1 + 2:3 * 4
-1 + 2:3
-1:3 * 4
+(1 + 2):(3 * 4)
+(1 + 2):3
+1:(3 * 4)
in
instead of ∈
and =
The keyword in
is used consistently instead of ∈
and =
in for
loops. Examples:
-for i = 1:2
+for i in 1:2
-for i ∈ 1:2
+for i in 1:2
Note that ∈
not replaced when used as an operator outside of loop contexts in
order to be symmetric with ∉
which doesn't have a direct ASCII equivalent.
See #17 for more details.
where
Braces are consistently used around the right hand side of where
expressions. Examples:
-T where T
-T where T <: S where S <: Any
+T where {T}
+T where {T <: S} where {S <: Any}
Trailing spaces are removed in code and comments (but not inside of multiline strings where doing so would change the meaning of the code). Examples:
-1 + 1
+1 + 1
-x = 2 # x is two
+x = 2 # x is two
Tabs are replaced with spaces. Example:
-function f()
- return 1
-end
+function f()
+ return 1
+end
Extra vertical spacing is trimmed so that there are at maximum two empty lines between expressions. Examples:
-function f()
- x = 1
-
-
-
- return x
-end
+function f()
+ x = 1
+
+
+ return x
+end
Any newlines at the start of a file are removed and if the file ends with more than one newline the extra ones are removed.