Skip to main content

editorconfig

.editorconfig is a configuration file used to define and maintain consistent coding styles across different editors and IDEs. It specifies rules for file formatting, such as indentation style, line endings, character encoding, and more. This helps ensure that all developers working on a project adhere to the same coding standards, regardless of their editor or IDE.

Common Settings in .editorconfig:​

# Top-most EditorConfig file
root = true

# Match all files
[*]
indent_style = space
indent_size = 4
end_of_line = lf
charset = utf-8
trim_trailing_whitespace = true
insert_final_newline = true

# Match Markdown files
[*.md]
trim_trailing_whitespace = false

Key Features:​

  • Indentation: Specifies whether to use tabs or spaces and the size of the indentation.
  • Line Endings: Defines whether to use LF, CRLF, or CR for line endings.
  • Character Encoding: Sets the file encoding, such as utf-8.
  • Trailing Whitespace: Configures whether to trim trailing whitespace.
  • Final Newline: Ensures a newline is added at the end of files.

Supported IDEs and Editors:​

Many popular IDEs and text editors support .editorconfig either natively or through plugins. Examples include:

  • Visual Studio Code (via the EditorConfig extension)
  • Visual Studio
  • JetBrains IDEs (e.g., IntelliJ IDEA, WebStorm, PyCharm)
  • Sublime Text
  • Atom
  • Eclipse
  • Vim
  • Emacs
  • Notepad++

How It Works:​

When you open a file, the editor reads the .editorconfig file (starting from the file's directory and moving up the directory tree) and applies the specified settings to the file. This ensures consistent formatting across the project.

what is .editorconfig file?​

An .editorconfig file is a configuration file that helps maintain consistent coding styles and formatting across multiple editors and IDEs. The file specifies a set of rules that define the coding style, such as indentation, line endings, and character encoding, for a particular project or codebase.

The .editorconfig file consists of sections that define different sets of rules for different types of files. For example, you can have a section for Python files that specifies the indentation size and another section for JavaScript files that specifies the line-ending style.

The file is named .editorconfig and is usually placed in the root directory of a project. When an editor or IDE opens a file, it looks for the .editorconfig file in the file's directory and applies the rules specified in the relevant section to the file.

EditorConfig is a widely adopted standard and is supported by many popular editors and IDEs, including Visual Studio Code, Atom, Sublime Text, and JetBrains IDEs.

EditorConfig is a tool that helps developers maintain consistent coding styles across different editors and IDEs. It uses a simple .editorconfig file to define a set of rules for code formatting, such as indentation style, line endings, and whitespace usage.

EditorConfig is a tool that helps developers maintain consistent coding styles across different editors and IDEs. It uses a simple .editorconfig file to define a set of rules for code formatting, such as indentation style, line endings, and whitespace usage.

To enforce the use of closing tags on single-line HTML elements in EditorConfig, you can use the following rule:

[*.html]
# Enforce closing tags on single-line elements
html_closing_singleline: require

In this example, the html_closing_singleline rule is set to require, which means that closing tags must be used on single-line HTML elements.

For example, with this rule enabled, the following HTML code would be formatted correctly:

<!-- This is correct -->
<div class="my-class">This is a div</div>

<!-- This is incorrect -->
<div class="my-class">This is a div</div>
<span class="my-class">This is a span</span>

Note that this rule is specific to EditorConfig and does not actually enforce any behavior in the HTML code itself. It is up to the developer to ensure that the HTML code adheres to the rules defined in the .editorconfig file.

Also note that this rule may conflict with ESLint's html/singleline-elements rule, which enforces a consistent style for HTML elements that are written on a single line. If you are using both EditorConfig and ESLint in your project, you may need to configure them to work together properly.

For HTML files, you can use the following EditorConfig settings to define the desired formatting rules:

# Indent with 2 spaces
[*.html]
indent_style = space
indent_size = 2

# Use LF line endings
[*]
end_of_line = lf

# Trim trailing whitespace
[*.{html,htm}]
trim_trailing_whitespace = true

In this example, the *.html section applies the indent_style and indent_size rules to HTML files. It specifies that indentation should use spaces instead of tabs, and that each level of indentation should be 2 spaces wide.

The [*] section applies the end_of_line rule to all files, specifying that line endings should use LF (Unix-style) instead of CRLF (Windows-style).

The [*.{html,htm}] section applies the trim_trailing_whitespace rule to HTML files, specifying that any trailing whitespace at the end of a line should be trimmed.

You can customize these settings to match your preferred coding style and formatting rules. You can also add additional rules and sections to the .editorconfig file to define formatting rules for other types of files, such as JavaScript or CSS.