7.6 KiB
Ormolu
Ormolu is a formatter for Haskell source code. The project was created with the following goals in mind:
- Using GHC's own parser to avoid parsing problems caused by
haskell-src-exts
. - Let some whitespace be programmable. The layout of the input influences the layout choices in the output. This means that the choices between single-line/multi-line layouts in certain situations are made by the user, not by an algorithm. This makes the implementation simpler and leaves some control to the user while still guaranteeing that the formatted code is stylistically consistent.
- Writing code in such a way so it's easy to modify and maintain.
- Implementing one “true” formatting style which admits no configuration.
- The formatting style aims to result in minimal diffs.
- Choose a style compatible with modern dialects of Haskell. As new Haskell extensions enter broad use, we may change the style to accommodate them.
- Idempotence: formatting already formatted code doesn't change it.
- Be well-tested and robust so that the formatter can be used in large projects.
Building and installation
The easiest way to build the project is with Nix:
$ nix-build -A ormolu
Note that you will need to add IOHK Hydra binary cache, otherwise building may take a very long time.
Or with cabal-install
from the Nix shell:
$ nix-shell --run "cabal new-build"
Alternatively, stack
could be used with a stack.yaml
file as follows.
$ cat stack.yaml
resolver: lts-18.5
packages:
- '.'
$ stack build # to build
$ stack install # to install
To use Ormolu directly from GitHub with Nix, this snippet may come in handy:
let
pkgs = import <nixpkgs> { };
source = pkgs.fetchFromGitHub {
owner = "tweag";
repo = "ormolu";
rev = "c1d8a8083cf1492545b8deed342c6399fe9873ea"; # update as necessary
# do not forget to update the hash:
sha256 = "sha256-3XxKuWqZnFa9s3mY7OBD+uEn/fGxPmC8jdevx7exy9o=";
};
in (import source { }).ormoluExe # this is e.g. the executable derivation
Arch Linux
To install Ormolu on Arch Linux, one can use the package on AUR:
yay -S ormolu
Usage
The following will print the formatted output to the standard output.
$ ormolu Module.hs
Add --mode inplace
to replace the contents of the input file with the
formatted output.
$ ormolu --mode inplace Module.hs
Use find
to format a tree recursively:
$ ormolu --mode inplace $(find . -name '*.hs')
Or find all files in a project with git ls-files
:
$ ormolu --mode inplace $(git ls-files '*.hs')
To check if files are are already formatted (useful on CI):
$ ormolu --mode check $(find . -name '*.hs')
Editor integration
We know of the following editor integrations:
- Emacs
- VS Code
- Vim: neoformat, vim-ormolu
GitHub actions
ormolu-action
is the recommended way to ensure that a
project is formatted with Ormolu.
Magic comments
Ormolu understands two magic comments:
{- ORMOLU_DISABLE -}
and
{- ORMOLU_ENABLE -}
This allows us to disable formatting selectively for code between these
markers or disable it for the entire file. To achieve the latter, just put
{- ORMOLU_DISABLE -}
at the very top. Note that for Ormolu to work the
source code must still be parseable even when the disabled regions are
omitted. Because of that the magic comments cannot be placed arbitrarily,
but rather must enclose independent top-level definitions.
Account for .cabal files
Many cabal and stack projects use default-extensions
to enable GHC
language extensions in all source files. With the
--cabal-default-extensions
flag, Ormolu will take them into consideration
during formatting.
When you format input from stdin, you can pass --stdin-input-file
which
will give Ormolu the location of the Haskell source file that should be used
as the starting point for searching for a suitable .cabal file.
Exit codes
Exit code | Meaning |
---|---|
0 | Success |
1 | General problem |
2 | CPP used (deprecated) |
3 | Parsing of original input failed |
4 | Parsing of formatted code failed |
5 | AST of original and formatted code differs |
6 | Formatting is not idempotent |
7 | Unrecognized GHC options |
8 | Cabal file parsing failed |
9 | Missing input file path when using stdin input and accounting for .cabal files |
100 | In checking mode: unformatted files |
101 | Inplace and check modes do not work with stdin |
102 | Other issue (with multiple input files) |
Limitations
- CPP support is experimental. CPP is virtually impossible to handle correctly, so we process them as a sort of unchangeable snippets. This works only in simple cases when CPP conditionals surround top-level declarations. See the CPP section in the design notes for a discussion of the dangers.
- Input modules should be parsable by Haddock, which is a bit stricter criterion than just being valid Haskell modules.
Running on Hackage
It's possible to try Ormolu on arbitrary packages from Hackage. For that execute (from the root of the cloned repo):
$ nix-build -A hackage.<package>
Then inspect result/log.txt
for possible problems. The derivation will
also contain formatted .hs
files for inspection and original inputs with
.hs-original
extension (those are with CPP dropped, exactly what is fed
into Ormolu).
Contributing
See CONTRIBUTING.md.
License
See LICENSE.md.
Copyright © 2018–present Tweag I/O