dotnet/roslyn

Visual Studio only formats if/while(...) when contents of (...) requires formatting

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#21,138 opened on Jul 26, 2017

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Area-IDEBugIDE-Formatterhelp wanted

Description

Version Used:

Visual Studio 2015 - 2017 (15.2)

Steps to Reproduce:

  1. Enter if(true == false){ or while(true == false){ in the Visual Studio editor.

Expected Behavior:

I'd expect this to be formatted to while (true == false) { }.

Actual Behavior:

It is actually formatted to while(true == false) { }. (note the missing after the while(.

If you enter while(true==false){, it gets formatted to while (true == false) { as I'd expect. if(true){ also becomes if (true) {.

It's actually different with for(var x=0;x<10;x++){, which becomes for(var x = 0; x < 10; x++) { }. In this case no is inserted in the for( despite the contents of (...) being formatted.

image

Because this behavior is inconsistent between (true) and (true == false), I'm constantly getting tripped up by it. 😭

See Twitter thread here: https://twitter.com/jcansdale/status/890186489912545282

Contributor guide

Tech stack
csharp
Domain
developer experience
Issue type
bug
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
3
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
1-2 days
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
stale
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
clear
Prerequisites
Basic knowledge of C#Familiarity with Roslyn's syntax formatting
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
25
Research direction
Investigate the formatting logic for control flow statements (if, while, for) in the Roslyn codebase. Focus on the token insertion mechanism that adds a space between the keyword and the opening parenthesis. Look at the SyntaxFormatter or related classes in the Formatting directory. Identify why a space is inserted only when the condition content requires formatting (e.g., contains operators like '=='), but not for simple literal conditions. Also examine the for loop case where no space is inserted after 'for' despite the condition being formatted. Compare the handling of 'if', 'while', and 'for' to understand the inconsistency.