Format codes with clang-format tool?

[dota17]

hi, hawicz @hawicz

The code formof json-c is a little messy, like json_tokener.c. Spaces and tabs are used mixedly and the code style is not unified. Maybe code formatting is a good choice. I submitted the .clang-format( clang-format configuration file ) and a formatted demo in https://github.com/dota17/json-c/pull/58/files.

If you are insterested in it. I am willing to submit the .clang-format file. And we could also add some other optimization options or formats you want. The other options are introduced in clang.llvm.org.

We can format the code by clang-format -i xxxx.c -style=file. And if a contributor want to add some codes, he can format the modified file by using .clang-format simply. Even, we can added formatting-code script in CI as entrance guard to force contributor formatting the codes, like jsoncpp.

[hawicz]

Several things:

• The churn this will generate sucks, but consistency would be nice.
  ** Perhaps it makes sense to rewrite all the commits in a parallel history tree with consistent formatting applied retroactively, so line-by-line attestation of changes shows something reasonably accurate? hmm...
• I prefer tabs instead of spaces, at least for indentation.
  ** Probably the UseTab: ForIndentation option, though I'm not quite clear as to what it'll do for "continuations"
  ** If it uses tabs to the start of the continued line, and then spaces from there, that'd be great.
• Braces should be on the following lines of function and struct definitions (I like being able to visually match up the starting and ending braces)
  ** Braces within a function, such as after if/while/switch/etc... should go on the next line too, but I can go either way with that.
  ** Probably BreakBeforeBraces: Allman
• "char foo", not "char foo". PointerAlignment: Right (i.e. the LLVM format default)
• Maximum line lengths are just suggestions, and long lines that end up split by an automatic formatted should be manually adjusted if it's more readable with different splitting.
  ** Let's use ColumnLimit: 100 here
• AlignEscapedNewlines: Left
• AllowShortCaseLabelsOnASingleLine : true
• IndentWidth: 4 (does it even matter UseTab?)
• ReflowComments: false
• TabWidth: 4 (does it even matter with UseTab?)

[dota17]

This change is really not comfortable indeed. Many files will be formatted. But the advantage is that the code will be cleaner and developers can read/update code easily. At the same time, contributors could optimize the code in a uniform format. I will add the optimization options according to your requirements.

[hawicz]

Never mind about rewriting all commit history. I just tried doing that, and it ends up being more of a mess that it's worth. git blame has a -w option anyway, which will mostly ignore formatting changes.