Zig fmt tips and tricks

zig_fmt_tips_tricks.md

Zig FMT is consistent and has a immutable style. But sometimes its hard to get around it. Here are a few places where Zig FMT might help but you may not know it:

When you need to make sure structs are multiline:

By default zig fmt formats struct fields into one line:

const MyStruct = { hello: "darkness", my_old: "friend" };

Just add a comma at the end of the last field value, run your formatter in your favourite text editor. And:

const MyStruct = {
  hello: "darkness",
  my_old: "friend", // <--- this comma
};

Long If conditions

Sometimes we really like long if conditions in our code. Zig default is a single line:

if (hey == 1 and jude == 2 and dont == true and let == false and true or me == 2 and down) {
  // ...
}

To make a part of it multiple line, simply add a line break (enter key) just after and or or. Zig fmt respects line breaks in this case. Run zig formatter and:

if (hey == 1 and
    jude == 2 and
    dont == true and let == false and true or
    me == 2 and down) {
  // ...
}