Apply formatting rules

When you type code in the editor, ReSharper reformats expressions as soon as you type a semicolon ; and reformats blocks of code as soon as you type a closing brace }. If necessary, you can disable these kinds of auto-formatting on the Environment | Editor | Behavior page of ReSharper options Alt+R, O.

ReSharper also lets you automatically apply your formatting rules when you paste code. By default, pasted code is not fully reformatted but only indentation settings are applied. If you want to fully format pasted code, or disable formatting on paste, use the Auto-format on paste selector on the Environment | Editor | Behavior page of ReSharper options Alt+R, O.

tip

Even if auto-formatting or auto-indenting on paste are enabled, you can paste code without reformatting it: press Ctrl+Z right after pasting, and only formatting will be undone.

Note that by default, Visual Studio applies its own formatting rules for edited and pasted code. If you are using ReSharper auto-formatting features, we recommend that you disable Visual Studio auto-formatting. You can do it in Visual Studio options (Tools | Options). For C# for example, clear the corresponding check-boxes on the Text Editor | C# | Code Style | Formatting | General options page.

ReSharper provides several ways to reformat existing code. In short, you can always use , but there are a few details and alternatives described below.

tip

If reformatting C# code is not an option, you can enable Virtual Formatter and view reformatted code without actually changing the sources.

You can reformat code in the current selection right from the list.

Alternatively, you can use code cleanup to reformat code in any scope. Code cleanup may be helpful if you want to combine code reformatting with applying other code styles.

note

Code cleanup is not applied to generated code. By default, ReSharper provides the list of file masks and regions for generated code typically produced by Visual Studio (for example, Windows Form Designer-generated code). If necessary, you can edit the list of generated items on the Code Inspection | Generated Code page of ReSharper options Alt+R, O.

note

The Built-in: Reformat Code profile does not reformat XML doc comments. You can use either Built-in: Full Cleanup profile or create your own custom cleanup profile for this purpose. For more information, refer to Reformat XML Doc comments.

If you want to reformat code without opening the Code Cleanup dialog to choose a profile, you can bind the default Reformat Code profile to the silent cleanup and run it by pressing . You can also create a custom cleanup profile that would combine code reformatting with other code style tasks.

You can apply formatting preferences every time you save changes in a file to make sure that your edits always comply with your code style.

In C# and C++, code formatting style can be also maintained using the code inspection features. ReSharper provides several dozens of formatting inspections, which are all disabled by default.

Depending on the solution, your codebase may have hundreds of minor formatting violations, like different indent sizes across methods, different case-label indents in switch-statements, missing line breaks, and so on. Enabling code inspections for all those violations could be too noisy.

On the other hand, there are formatting problems that decrease code readability or may influence your understanding of the code. For example:

• multiple type members on one same line,

• multiple statements on one line,

• incorrect indent around child statement,

• incorrect indent around declaration braces.

For such formatting problems, we recommend enabling code inspections.

Gif

You can apply some formatting rules 'softly', meaning that such rules will be applied when ReSharper produces new code with code completion and code generation features, applies code templates and performs refactorings, but these rules will be ignored when you reformat existing code (for example, with ).

To keep formatting rules less strict, use the Keep existing..., Keep max blank lines, and Simple wrap preferences for specific contexts. You can check or change the configuration of those preferences in ReSharper options Alt+R, O:

ReSharper also allows you to use explicit actions rather than formatting rules to reformat similar code in different ways. These actions are most helpful when you opt to keep existing formatting for the related rules. However, if you have stricter settings, then the corresponding explicit formatting actions will not work because such configurations mean that formatting rules should always be applied in the affected contexts. For example, if Keep existing... preferences are disabled, then the wrap/chop/spacious/compact commands described below will render the same result. If some wrapping rules are set to Chop..., code in the corresponding contexts will always be chopped even if you invoke wrap/compact commands.

Wrap and chop long lines

The Wrap long line and Chop long line actions become available when your caret is on a line, which is longer than the allowed maximum line length — you can configure it with the Right margin (columns) preference on the Code Editing | C# | Formatting Style | Line Breaks and Wrapping page of ReSharper options Alt+R, O.

You can press and choose one of the actions to add the necessary line breaks.

The Wrap long line will add just enough line breaks to make sure that the configured line length is not exceeded:

Before reformatting

var reportHtml = CreateReport("359CD313-7C7E-49B2-A2AB-E12FDFD1319D", DateTimeOffset.UtcNow.AddMonths(-1), DateTimeOffset.UtcNow, useRichText: true);

After reformatting

var reportHtml = CreateReport("359CD313-7C7E-49B2-A2AB-E12FDFD1319D", DateTimeOffset.UtcNow.AddMonths(-1),
    DateTimeOffset.UtcNow, useRichText: true);

The Chop long line will add line breaks for each entity on the line:

Before reformatting

var reportHtml = CreateReport("359CD313-7C7E-49B2-A2AB-E12FDFD1319D", DateTimeOffset.UtcNow.AddMonths(-1), DateTimeOffset.UtcNow, useRichText: true);

After reformatting

var reportHtml = CreateReport("359CD313-7C7E-49B2-A2AB-E12FDFD1319D",
    DateTimeOffset.UtcNow.AddMonths(-1),
    DateTimeOffset.UtcNow,
    useRichText: true);

Compact, spacious, and strict format for code blocks

Another set of actions for explicitly reformatting selected code helps you enforce more compact (fewer line breaks) or more spacious (more line breaks) style.

To invoke these actions, select a block of code (you can press multiple times to select a logical block) , press and choose Reformat and cleanup | Reformat selection.

If you have too many line breaks, which do not help read the code, it may be a good idea to remove them. In the example below, the empty getters and setters do not bring any useful information and can be safely placed on single lines. You can do this with the Compact format (fewer line breaks) action:

Before reformatting

public string Name
{
    get;
    set;
}
 
public int Age
{
    get;
    set;
}

After reformatting

public string Name { get; set; }
public int Age { get; set; }

You may want to use Spacious format (chop) to make a multi-line code block even easier to read. For example, you may want to add more line breaks in a complicated if statement or a heavy XElement constructor call:

Before reformatting

summaryTable.Add(new XElement("tr",
    new XElement("td", XmlHelpers.CreateHyperlink(inspection.Text,
            CodeInspectionHelpers.TryGetStaticHref(inspection.Id), null, true),
        new XComment(compoundName)), new XElement("td", GetSeverityLink(inspection.Severity))));

After reformatting

summaryTable.Add(new XElement("tr",
    new XElement("td",
        XmlHelpers.CreateHyperlink(inspection.Text,
            CodeInspectionHelpers.TryGetStaticHref(inspection.Id),
            null,
            true),
        new XComment(compoundName)),
    new XElement("td",
        GetSeverityLink(inspection.Severity))));

The Strict format action will reformat the selection ignoring any existing line breaks independently of how the Keep existing... preferences are configured; the Reindent only action will fix indentation without applying any other formatting preferences.