Add a configuration to preserve whitespace on lines containing only whitespace

[TTOzzi]

Resolve #801

I've implemented an option to preserve whitespace on lines that consist solely of whitespace.
I believe this option will be useful for many people, but I'm not sure if I've implemented it in the correct way 🤔
If the implementation direction is not correct, please feel free to let me know. Thank you 🙇

[TTOzzi]

The current implementation preserves whitespace exactly as it is.

Input (Output is the same as the input)

class A {
  func foo() -> Int {
    return 1
  }
     // 5 spaces
  func bar() -> Int {
    return 2
  }
}

---

Would it be better to modify it so that only the current level of indentation is preserved, like this?

Suggested change

	if configuration.allowWhitespaceOnlyLines, outputBuffer.isAtStartOfLine {
	let currentIndentationSpaceSize = outputBuffer.currentIndentation.indentation().count
	outputBuffer.write(String(repeating: " ", count: size - currentIndentationSpaceSize))
	} else {
	if configuration.allowWhitespaceOnlyLines, outputBuffer.isAtStartOfLine {
	let currentIndentationSpaceSize = outputBuffer.currentIndentation.indentation().count
	outputBuffer.write(String())
	} else {

Output will be changed to

class A {
  func foo() -> Int {
    return 1
  }
  // 2 spaces(same as indentation)
  func bar() -> Int {
    return 2
  }
}

[allevato]

Since people want this to match the behavior in Xcode (which I personally think is undesirable, but...), then the number of spaces should be changed to match the expected indentation if someone were to type on that line.

For example, if I have this:

func f() {}
     // <- 5 spaces
func g() {}

Then I wrap it in a struct, once I type the closing }, Xcode will re-indent the whole thing. When that happens, the line has changed to this:

struct S {
  func f() {}
  // <- 2 spaces
  func g() {}
}

[TTOzzi]

To completely match the behavior with Xcode, we need to create spaces according to the indentation even when there are no existing spaces. For now, I've modified it so that the indentation is adjusted only when spaces are present.

Do you think we need to generate spaces to match the indentation even when there are no spaces?

[allevato]

It looks like Xcode does insert spaces there, even when there aren't any.

@ahoppen @bnbarham Do you all have any strong opinions here? I've never liked this behavior in Xcode anyway (I always tell it to strip whitespace-only lines) but I could see myself arguing for either direction here. (And I'd rather not make it another separate knob on top of the one already being added here.)

[bnbarham]

I too would prefer not having an additional option for this, but I can definitely see some people wanting "ident all the things including blank lines" and others wanting "keep my trailing whitespace but don't add indentation to blank lines". So I'm not sure there's a good way around it :(.

Though TBH I don't fully understand the use case for either of these - might ask that in the issue, they do say "this is my favorite feature".

If we do just have the one, rather than allowWhitespaceOnlyLines maybe indentBlankLines/formatBlankLines is clearer?

[TTOzzi]

That sounds good to me!
Once we've finalized the implementation direction from the ongoing discussion, I'll update the configuration name as you suggested to make it clearer.

[TTOzzi]

I renamed the configuration to indentBlankLines for better clarity and updated the comments accordingly.

Additionally, I modified it so that when indentBlankLines is set to true, it adds spaces that match the current indent, even if there are no spaces in the blank lines.

input

struct S {
  func f() {}
// <- no space
  func g() {}
}

output

struct S {
  func f() {}
  // <- 2 spaces
  func g() {}
}

[allevato]

In this file, can you replace any trailing whitespace with literal \u{0020} escape sequences? That makes it clear to the reader what's being tested, and we don't risk the spaces being lost if someone's editor strips trailing spaces.

[TTOzzi]

Oh, that part was exactly what I was struggling with, and I didn’t know there was such a great solution! Thank you!

[allevato]

Can you leave a brief comment here explaining why we do this? To a random observer, asking it to write an empty string feels odd, but it's because we need the buffer to still do its other logic (flushing the pending indentation, etc.).

I'd also just write it as outputBuffer.write(""); same effect but easier to read/scan.

[TTOzzi]

I've added a comment and made the modification!

[ValentinWalter]

Really looking forward to this!

[ahoppen]

Does this mean that superfluous newline are no longer discarded if config.indentBlankLines is true? That seems surprising to me. Eg.

func foo() {}


func bar() {}

should still be formatted to only have one newline.

[TTOzzi]

Looking at it again, this logic doesn’t seem appropriate 🤔
In the initial implementation, this was added along with logic to retain user-entered spaces by inserting a space token, but it doesn’t seem necessary with the new implementation approach.
I’ll keep the logic that adds spaces as leadingIndent and, when processing newlines, add a soft newline if there’s a leadingIndent, ensuring that the actual output doesn’t exceed the configured limit lines.

[ahoppen]

Thanks. Just two minor comments, otherwise LGTM.

[TTOzzi]

Thanks. Just two minor comments, otherwise LGTM.

I've applied all the comments you suggested. Thank you for the kind review 🙇‍♂️

[ahoppen]

Thank you for implementing this, @TTOzzi. Looks good.

[TTOzzi]

Oops, sorry. The format check failed 😓
I’ve fixed it and force-pushed.

[ahoppen]

No worries. Already re-triggered CI.

[TTOzzi]

No worries. Already re-triggered CI.

Oh no, it failed on a different file this time 😨
I did the same formatting with curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/swiftlang/github-workflows/refs/heads/main/.github/workflows/scripts/check-swift-format.sh | bash as in CI, is there any other way to fix this?

[ahoppen]

You should be able to just cd to the swift-format directory and then run swift format -r -i .

[TTOzzi]

You should be able to just cd to the swift-format directory and then run swift format -r -i .

I'm done! Thank you!