Options include the following:
There are three different ways you can use Black from PyCharm:
- As local server using the BlackConnect plugin
- As external tool
- As file watcher
The first option is the simplest to set up and formats the fastest (by spinning up
{doc}Black's HTTP server </usage_and_configuration/black_as_a_server>
, avoiding the
startup cost on subsequent formats), but if you would prefer to not install a
third-party plugin or blackd's extra dependencies, the other two are also great options.
-
Install Black with the
d
extra.$ pip install 'black[d]'
-
Install BlackConnect IntelliJ IDEs plugin.
-
Open plugin configuration in PyCharm/IntelliJ IDEA
On macOS:
PyCharm -> Preferences -> Tools -> BlackConnect
On Windows / Linux / BSD:
File -> Settings -> Tools -> BlackConnect
-
In
Local Instance (shared between projects)
section:- Check
Start local blackd instance when plugin loads
. - Press the
Detect
button nearPath
input. The plugin should detect theblackd
executable.
- Check
-
In
Trigger Settings
section checkTrigger on code reformat
to enable code reformatting with Black. -
Format the currently opened file by selecting
Code -> Reformat Code
or using a shortcut. -
Optionally, to run Black on every file save:
- In
Trigger Settings
section of plugin configuration checkTrigger when saving changed files
.
- In
-
Install
black
.$ pip install black
-
Locate your
black
installation folder.On macOS / Linux / BSD:
$ which black /usr/local/bin/black # possible location
On Windows:
$ where black %LocalAppData%\Programs\Python\Python36-32\Scripts\black.exe # possible location
Note that if you are using a virtual environment detected by PyCharm, this is an unneeded step. In this case the path to
black
is$PyInterpreterDirectory$/black
. -
Open External tools in PyCharm/IntelliJ IDEA
On macOS:
PyCharm -> Preferences -> Tools -> External Tools
On Windows / Linux / BSD:
File -> Settings -> Tools -> External Tools
-
Click the + icon to add a new external tool with the following values:
- Name: Black
- Description: Black is the uncompromising Python code formatter.
- Program: <install_location_from_step_2>
- Arguments:
"$FilePath$"
-
Format the currently opened file by selecting
Tools -> External Tools -> black
.- Alternatively, you can set a keyboard shortcut by navigating to
Preferences or Settings -> Keymap -> External Tools -> External Tools - Black
.
- Alternatively, you can set a keyboard shortcut by navigating to
-
Install
black
.$ pip install black
-
Locate your
black
installation folder.On macOS / Linux / BSD:
$ which black /usr/local/bin/black # possible location
On Windows:
$ where black %LocalAppData%\Programs\Python\Python36-32\Scripts\black.exe # possible location
Note that if you are using a virtual environment detected by PyCharm, this is an unneeded step. In this case the path to
black
is$PyInterpreterDirectory$/black
. -
Make sure you have the File Watchers plugin installed.
-
Go to
Preferences or Settings -> Tools -> File Watchers
and click+
to add a new watcher:- Name: Black
- File type: Python
- Scope: Project Files
- Program: <install_location_from_step_2>
- Arguments:
$FilePath$
- Output paths to refresh:
$FilePath$
- Working directory:
$ProjectFileDir$
- In Advanced Options
- Uncheck "Auto-save edited files to trigger the watcher"
- Uncheck "Trigger the watcher on external changes"
Wing IDE supports black
via Preference Settings for system wide settings and
Project Properties for per-project or workspace specific settings, as explained in
the Wing documentation on
Auto-Reformatting. The detailed
procedure is:
-
Wing IDE version 8.0+
-
Install
black
.$ pip install black
-
Make sure it runs from the command line, e.g.
$ black --help
If you want Wing IDE to always reformat with black
for every project, follow these
steps:
-
In menubar navigate to
Edit -> Preferences -> Editor -> Reformatting
. -
Set Auto-Reformat from
disable
(default) toLine after edit
orWhole files before save
. -
Set Reformatter from
PEP8
(default) toBlack
.
If you want to just reformat for a specific project and not intervene with Wing IDE global setting, follow these steps:
-
In menubar navigate to
Project -> Project Properties -> Options
. -
Set Auto-Reformat from
Use Preferences setting
(default) toLine after edit
orWhole files before save
. -
Set Reformatter from
Use Preferences setting
(default) toBlack
.
Commands and shortcuts:
:Black
to format the entire file (ranges not supported);- you can optionally pass
target_version=<version>
with the same values as in the command line.
- you can optionally pass
:BlackUpgrade
to upgrade Black inside the virtualenv;:BlackVersion
to get the current version of Black in use.
Configuration:
g:black_fast
(defaults to0
)g:black_linelength
(defaults to88
)g:black_skip_string_normalization
(defaults to0
)g:black_skip_magic_trailing_comma
(defaults to0
)g:black_virtualenv
(defaults to~/.vim/black
or~/.local/share/nvim/black
)g:black_use_virtualenv
(defaults to1
)g:black_target_version
(defaults to""
)g:black_quiet
(defaults to0
)g:black_preview
(defaults to0
)
This plugin requires Vim 7.0+ built with Python 3.7+ support. It needs Python 3.7 to be able to run Black inside the Vim process which is much faster than calling an external command.
To install with vim-plug:
Black's stable
branch tracks official version updates, and can be used to simply
follow the most recent stable version.
Plug 'psf/black', { 'branch': 'stable' }
Another option which is a bit more explicit and offers more control is to use
vim-plug
's tag
option with a shell wildcard. This will resolve to the latest tag
which matches the given pattern.
The following matches all stable versions (see the Release Process section for documentation of version scheme used by Black):
Plug 'psf/black', { 'tag': '*.*.*' }
and the following demonstrates pinning to a specific year's stable style (2022 in this case):
Plug 'psf/black', { 'tag': '22.*.*' }
or with Vundle:
Plugin 'psf/black'
and execute the following in a terminal:
$ cd ~/.vim/bundle/black
$ git checkout origin/stable -b stable
On Arch Linux, the plugin is shipped with the
python-black
package, so
you can start using it in Vim after install with no additional setup.
or you can copy the plugin files from plugin/black.vim and autoload/black.vim.
mkdir -p ~/.vim/pack/python/start/black/plugin
mkdir -p ~/.vim/pack/python/start/black/autoload
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/psf/black/stable/plugin/black.vim -o ~/.vim/pack/python/start/black/plugin/black.vim
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/psf/black/stable/autoload/black.vim -o ~/.vim/pack/python/start/black/autoload/black.vim
Let me know if this requires any changes to work with Vim 8's builtin packadd
, or
Pathogen, and so on.
On first run, the plugin creates its own virtualenv using the right Python version and
automatically installs Black. You can upgrade it later by calling :BlackUpgrade
and
restarting Vim.
If you need to do anything special to make your virtualenv work and install Black (for
example you want to run a version from main), create a virtualenv manually and point
g:black_virtualenv
to it. The plugin will use it.
If you would prefer to use the system installation of Black rather than a virtualenv, then add this to your vimrc:
let g:black_use_virtualenv = 0
Note that the :BlackUpgrade
command is only usable and useful with a virtualenv, so
when the virtualenv is not in use, :BlackUpgrade
is disabled. If you need to upgrade
the system installation of Black, then use your system package manager or pip--
whatever tool you used to install Black originally.
To run Black on save, add the following lines to .vimrc
or init.vim
:
augroup black_on_save
autocmd!
autocmd BufWritePre *.py Black
augroup end
To run Black on a key press (e.g. F9 below), add this:
nnoremap <F9> :Black<CR>
How to get Vim with Python 3.6? On Ubuntu 17.10 Vim comes with Python 3.6 by
default. On macOS with Homebrew run: brew install vim
. When building Vim from source,
use: ./configure --enable-python3interp=yes
. There's many guides online how to do
this.
I get an import error when using Black from a virtual environment: If you get an error message like this:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<string>", line 63, in <module>
File "/home/gui/.vim/black/lib/python3.7/site-packages/black.py", line 45, in <module>
from typed_ast import ast3, ast27
File "/home/gui/.vim/black/lib/python3.7/site-packages/typed_ast/ast3.py", line 40, in <module>
from typed_ast import _ast3
ImportError: /home/gui/.vim/black/lib/python3.7/site-packages/typed_ast/_ast3.cpython-37m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so: undefined symbool: PyExc_KeyboardInterrupt
Then you need to install typed_ast
directly from the source code. The error happens
because pip
will download Python wheels if they are
available. Python wheels are a new standard of distributing Python packages and packages
that have Cython and extensions written in C are already compiled, so the installation
is much more faster. The problem here is that somehow the Python environment inside Vim
does not match with those already compiled C extensions and these kind of errors are the
result. Luckily there is an easy fix: installing the packages from the source code.
The package that causes problems is:
Now remove those two packages:
$ pip uninstall typed-ast -y
And now you can install them with:
$ pip install --no-binary :all: typed-ast
The C extensions will be compiled and now Vim's Python environment will match. Note that
you need to have the GCC compiler and the Python development files installed (on
Ubuntu/Debian do sudo apt-get install build-essential python3-dev
).
If you later want to update Black, you should do it like this:
$ pip install -U black --no-binary typed-ast
-
Install
ale
-
Install
black
-
Add this to your vimrc:
let g:ale_fixers = {} let g:ale_fixers.python = ['black']
gedit is the default text editor of the GNOME, Unix like Operating Systems. Open gedit as
$ gedit <file_name>
Go to edit > preferences > plugins
- Search for
external tools
and activate it. - In
Tools menu -> Manage external tools
- Add a new tool using
+
button. - Copy the below content to the code window.
#!/bin/bash
Name=$GEDIT_CURRENT_DOCUMENT_NAME
black $Name
- Set a keyboard shortcut if you like, Ex.
ctrl-B
- Save:
Nothing
- Input:
Nothing
- Output:
Display in bottom pane
if you like. - Change the name of the tool if you like.
Use your keyboard shortcut or Tools -> External Tools
to use your new tool. When you
close and reopen your File, Black will be done with its job.
-
Use the Python extension (instructions).
-
Alternatively the pre-release Black Formatter extension can be used which runs a Language Server Protocol server for Black. Formatting is much more responsive using this extension, but the minimum supported version of Black is 22.3.0.
Use sublack plugin.
If your editor supports the Language Server Protocol (Atom, Sublime Text, Visual Studio Code and many more), you can use the Python LSP Server with the python-lsp-black plugin.
Use python-black or formatters-python.
Use the Spotless plugin.
Add the following hook to your kakrc, then run Black with :format
.
hook global WinSetOption filetype=python %{
set-option window formatcmd 'black -q -'
}