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user9993
Asked: 2014-04-17 02:54:39 +0800 CST

Source code formatter/indenter

  • 772

I'm using Ubuntu 12.04. I do not have any root or sudo privileges as this is a company machine.

Is there, in a normal installation of Ubuntu 12.04, any terminal program that I can use to turn ugly malformed source code that lacks any indentation into nice looking code?

Again, I can't install any packages so I need one that already comes with Ubuntu, if such a thing exists.

For example:

    int main()
    {
test(1);
another_function(1);
}

And then convert it to:

int main()
{
    test(1);
    another_function(1);
}
c

6 Answers

  1. If you have the vim editor installed, open the file with vim file.c and type =G to indent the file from begin to end. Then save it with :wq.

    On default installations, vi (not vim) is installed, so it will not have the required ident package (as mentioned by karel).

    • 14

  2. clang-format is your friend! Its easy to use and useful.
    Here are some information about it.

    Usage

    $ clang-format file > formattedfile

    Or:

    $ clang-format -i file


    Step by step guide

    1. Horribly formatted code

    #include <iostream>
  using namespace std;
    int main() {
         cout << "Oh";
      cout << "clang format rulez!";       
             }

    main.cc

    2. Magical command 

    $ clang-format -i main.cc


    3. Well formatted code

    #include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main() {
  cout << "Oh";
  cout << "clang format rulez!";
}

    main.cc

    4. Happiness

    Installing

    If you like it, you can install it with,

    $ sudo apt-get install clang-format

    command.

    • 14

  3. Open the terminal and run:

    sudo apt-get install indent
indent -linux -l120 -i4 -nut unformatted-source-code.cpp

    ...where unformatted-source-code.cpp is the file that has unformatted C++ source code, such as the code in your example.

    Or if you can't install it, you can download the package with apt-get download indent and extract it: dpkg-deb -x indent*.deb fs/, the indent binary is located in fs/usr/bin/ where fs is any directory in your home directory. If you copy the unformatted-source-code.cpp file to the same place, fs/usr/bin/ , then the commands to indent the code from the terminal are:

    cd path/to/fs/usr/bin/  # change directories to the location of "indent" executable
./indent -linux -l120 -i4 -nut unformatted-source-code.cpp

    These commands can be run as normal user. It is not necessary to be root.

    • 4

  4. By default nano should be installed in ubuntu.

    You can use nano -i file to edit with auto-indent enabled.

    This may not change existing lines, for that you may have to manually indent it.

    See: http://www.nano-editor.org/dist/v2.0/nano.html

    • 2

  5. astyle and indent spring to mind, but a default Ubuntu install doesn't include either. Of course, if you have a C compiler, you can compile them and install them in your own PATH somewhere.

    # Something like -
./configure --prefix=$HOME/tools
make
make install
PATH=$PATH:$HOME/tools/bin
    • 2

  6. emacs :

    • open c file

    • select all

    • indent ( tab key)

    • save file

    HTH

    • 1