Compact formatter usage page

This is the usage page of format-compact, a formatter for Compact. This document assumes you are using format-compact by itself. However, use the Compact command-line tool instead of using the formatter on its own. The usage page of the Compact command-line tool is provided separately.

NAME

format-compact

OVERVIEW

The Compact formatter is part of the Compact toolchain and it takes as input a Compact source program in a specified source file, reformats it, and writes the reformatted program to a specified file. If such a file is not specified, it writes the reformatted program to standard output.

SYNOPSIS

format-compact flag ... sourcepath targetpath

DESCRIPTION

The flags flag ... are optional. They are described under FLAGS later in this document.

sourcepath should specify a file containing a Compact source program, and targetpath should specify a target file in which the reformatted program is to be written. targetpath may be an existing file, in which case the file will be replaced with the formatted program. targetpath may be the same as sourcepath, in which case the source program is replaced with the reformatted equivalent.

FLAGS

The following flags, if present, affect the formatter's behavior as follows:

--help

Prints help text and exits.

--version

Prints the compiler version and exits.

--language-version

Prints the language version and exits.

--vscode

Causes error messages to be printed on a single line so they are rendered properly within the VS Code extension for Compact.

--line-length n

Sets the target line length to n (default 100).

EXAMPLES

Assuming src/test.compact contains a well-formed Compact program, running:

format-compact src/test.compact

prints the formatted program of src/test.compact to standard output.

Assuming that formatted is an existing directory, running:

format-compact src/test.compact formatted/test.compact

writes the formatted program to formatted/test.compact. If the formatted directory does not exist the formatter complains that it cannot create the output file.

Alternatively, running:

format-compact src/test.compact src/test.compact

rewrites the formatted program to src/test.compact.

Assuming src/test.compact contains an ill-formed Compact program, running:

format-compact src/test.compact

exits with an error message describing the problem that prevents the Compact program in src/test.compact from compiling.