[erlang-questions] Pretty-printing Erlang

[Bengt Kleberg]

The clean up effect you describe as the beyond the scope of a pretty
printer might be achieve by tidier
(http://www.erlang-factory.com/conference/London2009/speakers/kostissagonas).

The problem with several body level expressions on one line is a problem
that I either avoid by having long variable/function names, or fix
manually after wards. It would be nice to get it done automatically.


bengt

 On Thu, 2010-10-21 at 02:59 +0200, Richard O'Keefe wrote:
> On 20/10/2010, at 8:03 PM, Bengt Kleberg wrote:
> 
> > Greetings,
> > 
> > I have used the module erl_prettypr
> > (http://www.erlang.org/doc/man/erl_prettypr.html) to achieve the emacs
> > layout prescribed here at work.
> 
> That's not exactly what I wanted, but it did lead me to
> erl_tidy:dir(), which was.
> 
> There are several things I'd like erl_tidy to do for me
> which I can't see any options for.
> 
> This isn't actually the original code here.  It's the
> code after _my_ el cheapo pretty printer finished with it.
> 
> -module(agent).
> -export([setup_agents/2]).
> 
> setup_agents(Agents, 0) ->
>     Agents;
> setup_agents(Agents, Num) ->
>     Agent = init(),
>     setup_agents(Agents ++ Agent, Num - 1).
> 
> init() ->
>     Vision = random:uniform(3),
>     Hunger = random:uniform(5),
>     Food = random:uniform(8),
>     [{agent, Vision, Hunger, Food}].
> 
> Here's the code after erl_tidy:dir() finished with it.
> 
> -module(agent).
> 
> -export([setup_agents/2]).
> 
> setup_agents(Agents, 0) -> Agents;
> setup_agents(Agents, Num) ->
>     Agent = init(), setup_agents(Agents ++ Agent, Num - 1).
> 
> init() ->
>     Vision = random:uniform(3),
>     Hunger = random:uniform(5),
>     Food = random:uniform(8),
>     [{agent, Vision, Hunger, Food}].
> 
> erl_tidy: has introduced two kinds of ugliness:
> (1) It has removed a line break after the first arrow,
>     making the placement of the body code inconsistent
>     between the clauses.
> 
> (2) There were two body-level expressions in the second
>     clause of setup_agents/2 which were well and properly
>     separated, but erl_tidy: has put them on the same
>     line, making it rather untidy.
> 
> This could be addressed by providing
>     {break_after_arrow,boolean()}
>     {break_after_comma,boolean()}
> options.
> 
> It's exam time here, so it will be a while before I can
> get around to doing anything about this, but before I even
> _think_ of peering inside erl_tidy:, do other people
> agree that this would be an improvement?
> 
> 
> 
> Of course the best code here would be something like
> 
> -module(agent).
> -export([set_up_agents/1]).
> 
> set_up_agents(N) ->
>     [new_agent() || _ <- lists:seq(1, N)].
> 
> new_agent() ->
>     Vision = random:uniform(3),
>     Hunger = random:uniform(5),
>     Food   = random:uniform(8),
>     {agent,Vision,Hunger,Food}.
> 
> but it is beyond the scope of a pretty-printer to make
> changes like that.
> 
>   Here's some sample
> code from a student assignment, after erl_tidy:dir() was
> done with it.
> 
> setup_agents(Agents, 0) -> Agents;
> setup_agents(Agents, Num) ->
>     Agent = init(), setup_agents(Agents ++ Agent, Num - 1).
> 
> (1) I'd like {break_after_arrow,boolean()}
>     to get consistent placement of code after arrows.
> 
> (2) I'd like {break_after_comma,boolean()}
>     to put the two expressions in the second clause
>     on separate lines.
> 
> setup_agents(Agents, 0) ->
>     Agents;
> setup_agents(Agents, Num) ->
>     Agent = init(),
>     setup_agents(Agents ++ Agent, Num - 1).
> 
> It is beyond the power of a 
> 
> 
> 
> > 
> > The code I write has 1 tab per level instead of the variable amount of
> > space/tab that emacs prescribes.
> > 
> > 
> > bengt
> > 
> > On Wed, 2010-10-20 at 04:59 +0200, Richard O'Keefe wrote:
> >> I have been marking some student Erlang code and could have used
> >> a pretty-printer.  There's a crude one I wrote, for tidying up
> >> basically good code, but something a bit stronger seems to be
> >> appropriate.
> >> 
> >> Any recommendations?
> >> 
> >> 
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> > 
> > 
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