pre-commit hook to reformat XML files

This project implements a pre-commit hook to gently reformat XML files using the tostring function of the lxml project.

• Ensure the tree is properly indented, one tag per line
• Pick indentation settings from editorconfig, whenever available. Settings are mapped as best as possible to the capabilities of the tostring function, i.e. either a number of spaces, or indent using tabs.
• Clean up spacing in tags
• Automatically rewrite as self-closing tags
• Add an extra space at the end of self-closing tags -- for extra readability (optional)
• Automatically use the same/change line endings
• Preserve spacing in tags content
• Keep comments
• Remove blank lines

Usage

Add the following to your .pre-commit-config.yaml file. The default is to automatically reformat all files of type xml. You might want to check the latest version of the repository here and change the rev key.

Note: The rev is NOT the version of lxml to run, but rather the version of the hook, i.e. a release of this project.

  - repo: https://github.com/efrecon/pre-commit-hook-lxml
    rev: v0.1.1
    hooks:
      - id: format-xml

If your project does not use editorconfig, you can still enforce indentation for all files through the --indent CLI option/hook argument. This can also be used to override editorconfig settings. For example, the following would enforce 3 spaces of indentation for all XML file, independently of your editorconfig settings or if there are no settings:

  - repo: https://github.com/efrecon/pre-commit-hook-lxml
    rev: v0.1.1
    hooks:
      - id: format-xml
        args:
          - --indent=3

The pre-commit hook can be controlled using a number of environment variables, all starting with PRE_COMMIT_HOOK_LXML_FORMAT_ and a number of options. Use options to change the behaviour for all users of your repository, e.g. specifying the indentation. Options can be specified under the args key in the YAML configuration. Use environment variables to adapt to your local client-side requirements, e.g. turning up logging to understand possible problems.

CLI Options

The CLI options can be used from the YAML pre-commit configuration, using the args key. The recognised options are:

• -i or --indent is the number of spaces to use when indenting files. Indentation can be set to 0 to not indent the file. When the value of this option is strictly negative, the hook will pick editorconfig settings, if possible. In case of problems, a default of 2 will be used.
• -r or --retries is the maximum number of times that indentation is run on the file before it does not change. This is because lxml may need to run several times due to inconsistencies. The (good?) default is 5 and there are little reasons to deviate from it.
• -e or --endings (or --line-endings) controls the line endings of the reformatted files. It can take one of the following values.
  • unix for LF line endings.
  • windows for CRLF line endings.
  • mac for CR line endings (Mac Classic).
  • auto (the default) will detect the line endings of the original file and apply it to the reformatted file. If the file had mixed line endings, the same line endings will be applied to the entire file in this order: windows > mac > unix -- as soon as the original file had one CRLF line ending, all lines will end with CRLF, etc.
• -s or --self-closing controls if there should be an additional space just before the /> characters in self-closing tags. Possible values are:
  • space: a space is always added, for all self-closing tags. This is the default. See example.
  • nospace: no extra space will be added, this the LXML default.
  • auto: a space will be added if the file contained the /> sequence of characters.
• -l or --log-level is the log level. One of DEBUG, INFO, WARNING, ERROR or CRITICAL.
• -w or --write tells the hook implementation to write the changes to the files. This is automatically turned on from the default args.

Environment Variables

Environment variables match the long options as follows. When an environment variable is set, its value will prevail over the value of the command-line option. This is because the hook is meant to be used from a YAML specification that is checked in your repository. Environment variables provide a way to depart from centralised options to adapt to local installation "quirks".

• PRE_COMMIT_HOOK_LXML_FORMAT_INDENT is the same as --indent.
• PRE_COMMIT_HOOK_LXML_FORMAT_RETRIES is the same as --retries.
• PRE_COMMIT_HOOK_LXML_FORMAT_WRITE is the same as --write. It recognises boolean values such as on, True, FALSE, t or 0.
• PRE_COMMIT_HOOK_LXML_FORMAT_LOG_LEVEL is the same as --log-level.
• PRE_COMMIT_HOOK_LXML_LINE_ENDINGS is the same as --line-endings.
• PRE_COMMIT_HOOK_LXML_SELF_CLOSING is the same as --self-closing.

Example

The following example

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<test><inside>text</inside>
<long>    Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.</long>
<space  > </space    >
<attr attr0="short" attr1="Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud" attr2="exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum"/>
                        <attrext attr0="osdifjsdfoi" attr2="oooddddddddddddd">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud</attrext>
                <empty></empty>
</test>

would be reformatted to the following, provided an indentation of 2 spaces:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<test>
  <inside>text</inside>
  <level>
    <one />
    <two>
      <more />
    </two>
  </level>
  <long>    Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.</long>
  <space> </space>
  <attr attr0="short" attr1="Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud" attr2="exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum" />
  <attrext attr0="osdifjsdfoi" attr2="oooddddddddddddd">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud</attrext>
  <empty />
</test>

Note that:

• the <inside> tag has been moved to a separate line.
• the <level> tree is broken into several lines, and indented with 2 spaces at each level.
• spacing in the <space> tag has been cleaned up, but its content preserved.
• the <empty> tag has been replaced by a self-closing tag.
• the <empty /> self-closing tag has an extra space before the closing />

Development

When developing the pre-commit hook, you can test it using the try-repo sub-command. You can temporarily specify arguments using the args key in the YAML configuration of this hook. In order to be able to see the loggers output, you will need to run with the --verbose flag to the try-repo sub-command.

Known Limitations

When files were not properly formatted, e.g. when not run with the --write flag, the implementation returns an error code that is related to the number of files that had errors. The code is the number of erroneous files + 2, in order to avoid using standard error codes. Since error codes are interpreted modulo 256, this means that it is possible for this hook to pass while there are problems. However, this is an edge case, especially since the default running scenario (and goal!) is to reformat the files.