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Better method for managing python black package

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#674 8 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Assessment

Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Newbie friendliness
30/100
Issue type
Feature
Clarity
Needs clarification
Activity status
Stale
Tech stack
java, python

Research direction

Start with BlackStep.java at the linked lines to understand the current system-path lookup, version check, and error message. Review the mentioned Gradle Python plugins before choosing an approach; done means missing or incompatible Black installations are handled better or have clearer instructions.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

enhancement

We are able to call black by shelling out to it on the system path, and we are able to cache its results by enforcing a version check on the binary. However, if it isn't on the path, or the version is wrong, we just show a helpful error message and let the user figure it out from there:

https://github.com/diffplug/spotless/blob/608e128381c89260f8a38fba985415c1f962ec7b/lib/src/main/java/com/diffplug/spotless/python/BlackStep.java#L65-L66

It would be nice if we could handle this better, or at least have better instructions. There are a few python plugins in the gradle ecosystem, I'll reach out to them to see if they are interested.

Dominant language
Java
Stars
5.7k
Forks
560
Avg merge
1d 13h
Merged PRs (30d)
43

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