Writing a code beautifier [closed]

Question

I'd like to write a code beautifier and i thought of using Ruby to do it. Could someone show me a place to get started? I've seen a lot of code beautifiers online but I've never come across any tutorials on how to write one. Is this a very challenging task for someone who's never undertaken any projects such as writing a compiler, parser, etc. before?

(Is there another langauge which would be more well suited for this kind of task, excluding C/C++?)

Answer 1

Python has an interesting feature - it exposes its own parser to scripts. There are examples that use the AST - abstract syntax tree - and do the pretty printing.

I'm not aware that Ruby exposes its own parser to its scripts in such a way, but there are parsers for Ruby written in Ruby here.

Answer 2

Well... I think the initial steps are what you'd do for any project.

Write a list of requirements. Describe a user interface to your program, that you like and won't prevent you meeting those requirements. Now you can write down more of a "code" design, and pick the language that would be easiest for you to meet that design.

Here's some requirements off the top of my head:

• Supports code beautifying of these languages: Ruby, Python, Perl
• Output code behaves identically to input
• Output has consistent use of tabs/spaces
• Output has consistent function naming convention
• Output has consistent variable naming convention
• Output has matching braces and indentation

Make as many as you want, it's your program. ;p I was kidding about the Perl, but I think every language you support is going to add a more work.