INDENT(1) | General Commands Manual | INDENT(1) |
indent
— indent
and format C program source
indent |
[input-file [output-file]]
[-bad | -nbad ]
[-bap | -nbap ]
[-bbb | -nbbb ]
[-bc | -nbc ]
[-bl | -br ]
[-c n]
[-cd n]
[-cdb | -ncdb ]
[-ce | -nce ]
[-ci n]
[-cli n]
[-d n]
[-di n]
[-dj | -ndj ]
[-ei | -nei ]
[-fc1 | -nfc1 ]
[-i n]
[-ip | -nip ]
[-l n]
[-lc n]
[-lp | -nlp ]
[-npro ]
[-pcs | -npcs ]
[-psl | -npsl ]
[-sc | -nsc ]
[-sob | -nsob ]
[-st ]
[-T typename]
[-troff ]
[-ut | -nut ]
[-v | -nv ] |
indent
is a C
program formatter. It reformats the C program in the
input-file according to the switches. The switches
which can be specified are described below. They may appear before or after
the file names.
NOTE: If you only specify an input-file, the formatting is done “in-place”, that is, the formatted file is written back into input-file and a backup copy of input-file is written in the current directory. If input-file is named /blah/blah/file, the backup file is named file.BAK. If file.BAK exists, it is overwritten.
If output-file is specified,
indent
checks to make sure it is different from
input-file.
If no input-file is specified input is read from stdin and the formatted file is written to stdout.
The options listed below control the formatting style imposed by
indent
.
-bad
,
-nbad
-bad
is specified, a blank line is forced after
every block of declarations. Default: -nbad
.-bap
,
-nbap
-bap
is specified, a blank line is forced after
every procedure body. Default: -nbap
.
Note: This option currently has no effect.-bbb
,
-nbbb
-bbb
is specified, a blank line is forced
before every block comment. Default: -nbbb
.-bc
,
-nbc
-bc
is specified, then a newline is forced
after each comma in a declaration. -nbc
turns off
this option. The default is -nbc
.-bl
,
-br
-bl
lines up compound statements like
this:
if (...) { code }
Specifying -br
(the default) makes
them look like this:
if (...) { code }
-c
n-cd
n-cdb
,
-ncdb
/* * this is a comment */
Rather than like this:
/* this is a comment */
This only affects block comments, not comments to the right of
code. The default is -cdb
.
-ce
,
-nce
else
”s
to cuddle up to the immediately preceding
‘}
’. The default is
-ce
.-ci
n-lp
is in effect.
-ci
defaults to the same value as
-i
.-cli
nswitch
statement.
-cli0.5
causes case labels to be indented half a
tab stop. The default is -cli0
.-d
n-d1
means that such comments are placed
one indentation level to the left of code. The default,
-d0
, lines up these comments with the code. See
the section on comment indentation below.-di
n-di16
.-dj
,
-ndj
-dj
left justifies declarations. -ndj
indents
declarations the same as code. The default is
-ndj
.-ei
,
-nei
else-if
processing. If
it's enabled, an if
following an
else
will have the same indentation as the
preceding if
statement. The default is
-ei
.-fc1
,
-nfc1
/
’ is
in column 1 have been carefully formatted by the programmer. In such
cases, -nfc1
should be used. The default is
-fc1
.-i
n-ip
,
-nip
-ip
.
Note: This option currently has no effect.-l
n-lc
n-lp
,
-nlp
-nlp
in effect:
p1 = first_procedure(second_procedure(p2, p3), third_procedure(p4,p5));
With -lp
in effect (the default) the
code looks somewhat clearer:
p1 = first_procedure(second_procedure(p2, p3), third_procedure(p4,p5));
Inserting two more newlines we get:
p1 = first_procedure(second_procedure(p2, p3), third_procedure(p4, p5));
The default is -lp
.
-npro
-pcs
,
-npcs
-pcs
) all procedure calls will have a
space inserted between the name and the
‘(
’. The default is
-npcs
.-psl
,
-npsl
-psl
) the names of procedures being
defined are placed in column 1 - their types, if any, will be left on the
previous lines. The default is -psl
.-sc
,
-nsc
*
’) at the left edge of all
comments. The default is -sc
.-sob
,
-nsob
-sob
is specified, indent will swallow optional
blank lines. You can use this to get rid of blank lines after
declarations. Default: -nsob
.
Note: This option currently has no effect.-st
indent
to take its input from stdin, and
put its output to stdout.-T
typename-T
can be specified more than once.
You need to specify all the typenames that appear in your program that are
defined by typedef
- nothing will be harmed if you
miss a few, but the program won't be formatted as nicely as it should.
This sounds like a painful thing to have to do, but it's really a symptom
of a problem in C: typedef
causes a syntactic
change in the language and indent
can't find all
instances of typedef
.-troff
indent
to format the program for processing
by troff, producing a fancy listing. If the output file is not specified,
the default is standard output, rather than formatting in place.-ut
,
-nut
-ut
.-v
,
-nv
-v
turns on “verbose” mode; -nv
turns
it off. When in verbose mode, indent
reports when
it splits one line of input into two or more lines of output, and gives
some size statistics at completion. The default is
-nv
.You may set up your own “profile” of defaults to
indent
by creating a file called
.indent.pro in your login directory and/or the
current directory and including whatever switches you like. An
.indent.pro file in the current directory takes
precedence over the one in your login directory. If
indent
is run and a profile file exists, then it is
read to set up the program's defaults. Switches on the command line, though,
always override profile switches. The switches should be separated by
spaces, tabs or newlines.
‘Box’
comments.
indent
assumes that any comment with a dash, star,
or newline immediately after the start of comment (that is,
‘/*-
’,
‘/**
’, or
‘/*
’ followed immediately by a newline
character) is a comment surrounded by a box of stars. Each line of such a
comment is left unchanged, except that its indentation may be adjusted to
account for the change in indentation of the first line of the comment.
Straight
text. All other comments are treated as straight text.
indent
fits as many words (separated by blanks,
tabs, or newlines) on a line as possible. Blank lines break paragraphs.
If a comment is on a line with code it is started in the
“comment column”, which is set by the
-c
n command line parameter.
Otherwise, the comment is started at n indentation
levels less than where code is currently being placed, where
n is specified by the
-d
n command line parameter. If
the code on a line extends past the comment column, the comment starts
further to the right, and the right margin may be automatically extended in
extreme cases.
In general, indent
leaves preprocessor
lines alone. The only reformatting that it will do is to straighten up
trailing comments. It leaves embedded comments alone. Conditional
compilation (#ifdef...#endif
) is recognized and
indent
attempts to correctly compensate for the
syntactic peculiarities introduced.
indent
understands a substantial amount
about the syntax of C, but it has a “forgiving” parser. It
attempts to cope with the usual sorts of incomplete and misformed syntax. In
particular, the use of macros like:
#define forever for(;;)
is handled properly.
HOME
The indent
command appeared in
4.2BSD.
indent
has even more switches than
ls(1).
A common mistake is to try to indent all the C programs in a directory by typing:
$ indent *.c
This is probably a bug, not a feature.
June 24, 2013 | OpenBSD-current |