Thoughts on automated code formatting

For a long time, I've been focused on writing code that complies with defined coding standards, either to pass an automated check from a tool like PHP Code Sniffer (PHPCS) or eslint, or a code review from a team member.

Complying with the standards though is something that I've done manually.

As well as automated tools for linting the code, there are tools like PHP Code Beautifier and Fixer, and Prettier for formatting the code based on the same standards, which I've started to use more recently.

These tools can be run on the command line, VS Code has a "Format on save" option, and I can do the same in Neovim using an auto-command that runs after writing a file if an LSP is attached. I typically use a key mapping for this though so I can run it when I need, rather than it running automatically every time a file is saved.

One of my concerns with automated code formatting is what to do when working with existing code that doesn't already follow the standards. If I need to make a change to a file, with automated formatting, the rest of the file can change due to formatting being applied when I save my change.

I recently introduced a PHPCS step to a CI pipeline for an existing project. I knew that it was going to fail initially, but I was able to see the list of errors. I ran the code formatter on each of the files to fix the errors, committed and pushed the changes, and watched the pipeline run successfully.

This meant that I had a commit reformatting all of the affected files, but it was good to combine these together rather than having them separate, and not mixed with any other changes like a new feature or a bug fix.

Since doing this, it's been nice when working in this codebase to not have to worry about code style violations, and I can focus on writing the code that I need to, knowing that I can rely on the automated formatting to fix any issues before I commit them.