Sorting of using directives

[NonSpicyBurrito]

I would like using directives to be sorted with these rules:

• System on top.
• The rest sorted alphabetically.
• All using static at the end which follows the same rules.

Example:

using System;
using Bar;
using Baz;
using Foo;
using static System.Math;
using static Bar.BarHelper;
using static Foo.FooHelper;

[belav]

I personally also like sorted imports, but I don't know if csharpier should be concerned with sorting them.

So far csharpier has followed a lot of the rationale of prettier. Part of that is avoiding transforming any code and sticking to just printing code (adding/removing whitespace). This makes it fairly straightforward for csharpier to validate that changes it made do not change the behavior of the code.

There are some other options for sorting usings. At work we use a combination of stylecop + csharpier.
It looks like dotnet format can also sort usings with https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/fundamentals/code-analysis/style-rules/formatting-rules?view=vs-2019#organize-using-directives

[NonSpicyBurrito]

Related Prettier issue.
The big point is that import sorting in JS can potentially mess up your code because imports can have side effects, which is not the case for C#.

I do understand not wanting to do it because of the added complexity, but having to use multiple tools to handle formatting is not exactly ideal. I hope you can consider it more.

[belav]

I think I am starting to feel less and less married to the idea that csharpier will never transform code. There are a lot of useful things it can't do if the only thing it worries about is whitespace. The challenge will be figuring out how to get the validation code to understand the transform. Although if validation is opt in, maybe that is less important.

Another argument for sorting usings is that it can help avoid merge conflicts. I don't know that I've run into it often for c# (maybe because most IDEs auto add usings sorted) but I remember searching for an eslint plugin to do it specifically because of how often we ran into merge conflicts on imports in typescript files at work.

[belav]

Conditional compilation is going to cause some headaches on this. An example

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using Insite.Common.Dependencies;
using Insite.Common.Providers;
using Insite.WebFramework.Templating;

#if NET6_0_OR_GREATER
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Html;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.Razor;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.Rendering;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.Routing;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.ViewFeatures;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Caching.Memory;
#else
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Caching;
using System.Web.Hosting;
using System.Web.Mvc;
using System.Web.Mvc.Html;
using System.Web.Optimization;
using System.Web.WebPages;
#endif

[NonSpicyBurrito]

Wouldn't it to be simply sorting these 3 blocks of usings separately?

[belav]

I think that's the proper way to handle ii. I don't think it will be too difficult to handle but wanted to make sure I didn't forget about it. There is the potential to introduce compilation errors if the usings are moved outside of the scope of an #if.

[snebjorn]

While a solution is found for sorting import with CSharpier could an option to trigger the import formatter from OmniSharp be added to the VSCode extension?

omnisharp.organizeImportsOnFormat

The issue is that only 1 formatter can be set in VSCode. So I have to do CTRL + SHIFT + P then select "Format Document With..." then select "C#" and then save the file to trigger formatting with CSharpier.

[Sti2nd]

I think one should be careful with increasing the scope of CSharpier. I greatly appreciate that CSharpier only formats white spaces. One tool with one job is easy to understand; "Csharpier formats white space". I think this simplicity made it easier for me to convince my team to use CSharpier as they were initially not convinced to use it in favor of dotnet format whitespace.

CSharpier brings something new that dotnet format doesn't have; wrapping long lines 😍. Sorting usings is something there exists tools for already so it will be yet another implementation.

If this feature is introduced please make sure that it plays nice with the other two dotnet format commands; dotnet format style and dotnet format analyzers.

[Sti2nd]

A colleague said yesterday that it would be nice if Csharpier removed unused usings. So if sorting is implemented, it makes sense to implement that as well. (Mind the feature creep)

[viniciuschiele]

Prettier for Java sorts imports and personally I find it great.

Docs: https://github.com/jhipster/prettier-java#organize-imports
PR: jhipster/prettier-java#281