Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Vlad Glagolev <stealth AT sourcemage.org>]

Okay, let's talk about some things I've been thinking since 2003, when I 
started to look into the spell's structure.

Yes, it's all about formatting, formatting standards, what do we have and 
what would we have.
Please bring some of your thoughts and opinions. They are really appreciated.

This will be a series of discussion, about the most important files in 
(almost) every spell.
This is also a small RFC of my opinion ("constructed" by many years and work 
with programming in several
languages like C/C++, Shell script, and Python and several projects like T2, 
OpenBSD, and Lunar-Linux).

I think we still need some standartisation for the formatting (like we have 
aligning in DETAILS).

But, first of all, let's start talking about the general things in formatting:

1. Lines of code in every file (DETAILS, ChangeLog, HISTORY, INSTALL, 
DEPENDS, etc.) should have limits for the length (80 chars), this is a common 
practice.
2. There's no recommendation for quotes: like in Python, both ' and " are 
accepted and can be used by a developer.
3. In variables, extra stuff shouldn't be put. Like quotes and curly brackets 
(braces). Only where it's really needed:
- {, } in variables like: ${SOURCE/-//} (bash patterns), ${SOURCE}_file 
(underscore in name), but not in regular $SPELL-$VERSION, etc.
- ", ' in variables which can contain spaces, for example "$INSTALL_ROOT". As 
it's user-defined, it can contain spaces in full path, so it's a good idea to 
quote it.
4. UPPERCASE sub-dependencies in SUB_DEPENDS and PRE_SUB_DEPENDS (for 
example, I fixed it for python3 spell, at least, but python remains..).
5. double-spaces in constructions if-else, etc.: use double-spaces (like 4 
spaces in Python, tabs in C++) to align the blocks of code after a new line.
6. "then", like "do" should remain on the same line as "if" and "while" 
accordingly.
7. Use bash power while creating dirs, using cycles, etc. to minimize the 
code, for example: mkdir -p dir/{braces,are,good} instead of mkdir -p 
dir/braces dir/are dir/good, or even worse: mkdir -p dir/braces && mkdir 
dir/are && mkdir dir/good.

Will be waiting for your comments.

-- 
Dont wait to die to find paradise...
--
Cheerz,
Vlad "Stealth" Glagolev

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