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EditorConfig Properties

Tim Weber edited this page Feb 17, 2024 · 73 revisions

Properties are now known as "declarations", but that is only a name change. You should probably always read the latest doc.

Current and Future EditorConfig Properties

This document details current EditorConfig properties and ideas for future properties (both universal and domain-specific).

Universal vs. Domain-Specific

Universal properties are those which can have a meaning for nearly every file format.

Domain-specific properties are those which may not be meaningful for some file formats.

Current Universal Properties

For any property, a value of unset is to remove the effect of that property, even if it has been set before. For example, add indent_size = unset to undefine indent_size property (and use editor default).

Widely Supported by Editors

indent_style

Indentation Style

The values are case insensitive. They will be lowercased by the core library.

Possible Values

  • tab
  • space

Supported By

  • all plugins

indent_size

Indentation Size (in single-spaced characters)

The values are case insensitive. They will be lowercased by the core library.

Possible Values

  • an integer
  • tab

If indent_size equals to tab, the indent_size will be set to the tab size, which should be tab_width if tab_width is specified, or the tab size set by editor if tab_width is not specified.

Supported By

  • all plugins

tab_width

Width of a single tabstop character

Possible Values

  • a positive integer (defaults indent_size when indent_size is a number)

Supported By

  • all plugins

end_of_line

Line ending file format (Unix, DOS, Mac)

The values are case insensitive. They will be lowercased by the core library.

NOTE: if you want to use native line endings between different operating systems it is better not to set this option and leave that task to the VCS! In the future we might add a value like native for this scenario (cf #226).

Possible Values

  • lf
  • crlf
  • cr

Supported By

  • all plugins

charset

File character encoding (See Character Set Support.)

The values are case insensitive. They will be lowercased by the core library.

Possible Values

  • latin1
  • utf-8
  • utf-16be
  • utf-16le
  • utf-8-bom

trim_trailing_whitespace

Denotes whether whitespace is removed from the end of lines

The values are case insensitive. They will be lowercased by the core library.

Possible Values

  • true: remove any whitespace characters preceding newline characters
  • false: ensure the editor keeps whitespace characters

insert_final_newline

Denotes whether file should end with a newline

The values are case insensitive. They will be lowercased by the core library.

Possible Values

  • true
  • false

Supported By A Limited Number of Editors

max_line_length

Forces hard line wrapping after the amount of characters specified. off to turn off this feature (use the editor settings).

Possible Values

  • positive integers
  • off

Supported By

  • Emacs
  • Vim
  • Neovim
  • Atom
  • ReSharper and Rider
  • AppCode, IntelliJ IDEA, PhpStorm, PyCharm, RubyMine, and WebStorm
  • Kakoune
  • Prettier

Propose New Properties and Values

Please read the FAQ.

Ideas for Domain-Specific Properties

The following properties are not intended to be implemented by EditorConfig.
This is simply a brainstorm of domain-specific properties that could be supported by some tools that rely on EditorConfig files.

There is a proposal to "namespace" properties with a language-dependent prefix. See Issue #332.

Ideas for Domain-Specific Properties
Property Possible Values Purpose Domain
quote_type single, double, auto Denotes preferred quoting style for string literals (for languages that support multiple quote styles) with multiple equivalent string literal quote types
c_include_path Directory paths separated by colon (:) Denotes the include paths of header files for some languages. Could be used by syntax checkers and compilers inside editors. C-family languages (such as C, C++, D, Objective-C, etc.)
java_class_path Paths separated by colon (:) Denotes the CLASSPATH used by the Java source files. Could be used by some Java syntax checkers and compilers inside editors. Java
curly_bracket_next_line true, false Denotes whether the left part of the curly bracket should be on the next line or not C-family languages (such as C, C++, Java, Javascript, etc.)
spaces_around_operators true, false, hybrid Denotes whether spaces should be present around arithmetic and boolean operators with infix operators and optional spaces
spaces_around_brackets none, inside, outside, both Denotes how spaces should be around brackets and parentheses: no space, only inside the brackets, only outside the brackets, or at the both side of brackets
indent_brace_style K&R, Allman, GNU, Horstmann, etc. Denotes the style for using curly braces in code blocks C-family languages (such as C, C++, Java, Javascript, etc.) with code blocks using curly braces
wildcard_import_limit int Denotes the number of imports required before multiple imports are automatically collapsed to a wildcard (or a wildcard is automatically expanded to explicit imports) Java etc. (Eclipse and IDEA already have the core functionality)
continuation_indent_size unsigned integer Denotes the continuation indent size. Useful to distinguish code blocks versus continuation lines Python, JetBrains (IntelliJ IDEA), Netbeans (JSON, PHP, Java)
block_comment, line_comment, block_comment_start, block_comment_end char Denotes the block_comment or line_comment character to mark a block or each line as comment. Some languages require # prepended on each line, others // or ;. Some have specific block start markers and end markers such as /* and */ and <!-- and --!> Python, configfiles, yml, ini, JetBrains (Pycharm, IntelliJ IDEA)

* Some of the options above are inspired by codepainter.