Black

Why do I need it?

Life is too short to tidy up code by hand. Black is an opinionated python formatter. By using it, you agree to cede control over minutiae of hand-formatting.

install

pip install black

Why would I use it?

Blackened code looks the same regardless of the project you’re reading. Formatting becomes transparent after a while and you can focus on the content instead.

Show me more!

Given this code

#!/usr/bin/env python
dxdy = (
    (-1, -2),(0, -2),    (1, -2),
    (-2, -1),
    (-1, -1),(0, -1),
    (1, -1),    (2, -1),
    (-2, 0 ),
    (-1, 0 ),
    (1, 0),(2, 0),
    (-2, 1),
    (-1, 1),(0, 1),
    (1,1),
    (2,1),
    (-1,2),(0, 2),(1, 2),    (0, 0),)
ny=71
nx=71
coords = [17, 0]
for dx, dy in dxdy:
    neighbour_coords = coords[0] + dx, coords[1] + dy
    if not (0 <= neighbour_coords[0] < nx 
        and 0 <= neighbour_coords[1] < ny):
        print(f'off {coords[0] + dx} {coords[1] + dy}')
    else:
        print(f"on {coords[0] + dx} {coords[1] + dy}")

running

python -m black test.py or black test.py

results in

#!/usr/bin/env python
dxdy = (
    (-1, -2),
    (0, -2),
    (1, -2),
    (-2, -1),
    (-1, -1),
    (0, -1),
    (1, -1),
    (2, -1),
    (-2, 0),
    (-1, 0),
    (1, 0),
    (2, 0),
    (-2, 1),
    (-1, 1),
    (0, 1),
    (1, 1),
    (2, 1),
    (-1, 2),
    (0, 2),
    (1, 2),
    (0, 0),
)
ny = 71
nx = 71
coords = [17, 0]
for dx, dy in dxdy:
    neighbour_coords = coords[0] + dx, coords[1] + dy
    if not (0 <= neighbour_coords[0] < nx and 0 <= neighbour_coords[1] < ny):
        print(f"off {coords[0] + dx} {coords[1] + dy}")
    else:
        print(f"on {coords[0] + dx} {coords[1] + dy}")

Now what?

There are a few command line arguments (for example I like to use -l 120 to make the columns a little larger ) read the documents from here

Hacker news discussion

Perhaps you can add a git hook to run black by default on your project when you commit.