spotlessApply --staged

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#623 14 comments 23 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Assessment

Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Newbie friendliness
45/100
Issue type
Feature
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Quiet
Tech stack
git, java
Domain
build-system, tooling

Research direction

Start by reading the staged-file hook script linked from issue #178 and inspect Spotless's existing git integration. Review the discussion around #603 and #600 before choosing an approach. Done means providing staged modes for checking or applying formatting without changing the unstaged working-tree content.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

enhancement

Spotless applies itself to the files on disk. However, when git makes a commit, it does not use the files on disk, it uses the staging area. If you do this:

change foo.txt
spotlessApply
git add foo.txt
git commit -m "blah"

Then your commit will definitely pass a spotlessCheck. But if you do this, it might not:

change foo.txt
git add foo.txt
spotlessApply         (changes foo on disk, but not the staged/index foo)
git commit -m "blah"  (you committed the dirty foo, not the clean foo)

aside: this three-files-per-file model, with an independent index, is confusing to beginners, and imo of limited utility even to experts, which is why DiffPlug doesn't have a staging area.

@lowwor made an excellent git hook script which uses the stash to run spotlessCheck on staged files.

With our new git integration, it would now be relatively easy for Spotless to have a mode which operates on the staging area directly. This is especially useful for pre-commit hooks, which could either fail on badly formatted content spotlessCheck --staged, or silently fix the commit right before it is created spotlessApply --staged.

Due to merge conflicts that this is likely to generate, implementing this is blocked on #603 and #600. PR's welcome!

Dominant language
Java
Stars
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Forks
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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First steps

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  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

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