How to disable formatting for snippet? Java/Maven

[mattcopas]

How do I turn off formatting for a certain bit of code?

I am trying to disable it for a method chain.

I've tried using // @Formatter syntax
e.g.

public void foo() {
  // @formatter:off
  here()
    .dont().format()
  .the()
       .code();
  // @formatter:off
  // format as normal from here...
}

but this approach doesn't seem to work.

Is there a way to do this in spotless?

Thanks

[jbduncan]

Hi @mattcopas, welcome to Spotless!

What formatter from Spotless are you using? Does your setup look more like this:

spotless {
  java {
    eclipse().configFile(...)
  }
}

or more like this:

spotless {
  java {
    googleJavaFormat(...)
  }
}

or more like this?

spotless {
  java {
    custom(...)
  }
}

If you're using eclipse(), then using // @formatter:off and then // @formatter:on should work fine.

If you're using googleJavaFormat(), then sadly google-java-format explicitly doesn't support those tags, since it's meant to be a very simple solution where everyone can agree on a common style without nitpicking (google/google-java-format#137).

If you're using a custom step or something else, I'd love it if you could provide us with more context e.g. an MVCE so we can understand better what you're trying to achieve. :)

[jbduncan]

Oh, I should have asked first: are you using the Gradle plugin or the Maven plugin?

[mattcopas]

@jbduncan Thanks for the quick response. We're using the google format, so it actually looks like this isn't a spotless issue but a google one (thank you for the link).

Closing as out of scope.

[jbduncan]

@mattcopas You're very welcome!

I don't know if this will help, but with Spotless you can exclude certain files from being formatted, so if you have Java files that contain a lot of DSL-like code or unusual method chaining, you could exclude them from being formatted by google-java-format and manually format and maintain them yourself.

Something like the following (untested, and may only work with Gradle's Kotlin DSL!):

spotless {
  java {
    target(fileTree("src/**/*.java") {
        exclude(
            "**/com/company/package/FirstFileWeDoNotWantToFormat.java",
            "**/com/company/package/SecondFileWeDoNotWantToFormat.java")
    })
  }
}

[nedtwigg]

Just an update that since plugin-gradle 5.5.0 and plugin-maven 2.3.0, it is now possible to use any formatter, in any language, and exclude specific snippets with spotless:off tags.

[hanoch]

@nedtwigg are there spotless:off and spotless:on tags or XML comments that can be used with the eclipseWtp XML format as well, when formatting XML files?

Adding <!-- spotless:off --> didn't help.

I am using the maven plugin.

[nedtwigg]

@hanoch yes, but you'll need to enable toggleOffOn()

[hanoch]

How do I "enable toggleOffOn()" from the maven plugin?

I am assuming that once enabled, the <!-- spotless:off --> and <!-- spotless:on --> XML comments syntax will work?

[hanoch]

NVM, found it - https://github.com/diffplug/spotless/tree/main/plugin-maven#spotlessoff-and-spotlesson
<toggleOffOn />

Worked for the XML format as well, with the <!-- spotless:off --> and <!-- spotless:on --> XML comments syntax.
Nice!

[hanoch]

BTW - is there a similar syntax to temporarily override an eclipseWtp *.prefs properties, such as lineWidth=150, in a specific file segment?

[nedtwigg]

#817 is the closest we've got.