Re: Format code snippets of the wolfram language to improve readability.

[Hongyi Zhao]

On Wed, Apr 27, 2022 at 3:59 PM Thibaut Verron <thibaut.verron@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On 27/04/2022 02:32, Hongyi Zhao wrote:
> > On Tue, Apr 26, 2022 at 10:31 PM Thibaut Verron
> > <thibaut.verron@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On 26/04/2022 16:00, Hongyi Zhao wrote:
> >>> On Tue, Apr 26, 2022 at 9:17 PM Thibaut Verron <thibaut.verron@gmail.com> 
> >>> wrote:
> >>>> Hi,
> >>>>
> >>>> Once the mode is activated, introducing newlines at key places should
> >>>> make the formula readable.
> >>> Yes. It works. But this method needs to hit many times on <RET> to
> >>> achieve the goal.
> >>>> You can also use sexp-navigation commands to
> >>>> quickly navigate the parentheses and find those key points.
> >>> I don't have this command, as shown in the attachment.
> >> It's not one command, but a set of commands for navigating paired
> >> expressions: for example forward-sexp C-M-f (jumping over a symbol or a
> >> paired expression), backward-sexp C-M-b, and down-list C-M-d (jumping
> >> inside the next paired expression). Those commands are designed for lisp
> >> languages, but they work remarkably well for most programming languages
> >> (and are even occasionally useful with natural languages).
> >>
> >> For example for your expression, you can get the formatted version I
> >> sent with: (indented to follow the depth in the expression)
> >>
> >> C-M-d
> >>     C-M-d
> >>       C-j
> >>       C-M-f C-M-f C-f C-j
> >>       C-M-d
> >>         C-j
> >>           C-M-d
> >>             C-M-d
> >>               C-M-f C-M-f C-f C-j
> >>               C-M-f C-M-f C-f C-j
> >>               C-M-f C-M-f C-f C-j
> >>               C-M-f
> >>             C-f
> >>           C-f C-j
> >>           C-M-f C-M-f
> >>        C-f
> >>     C-f C-j
> >>
> >> I know that it looks somewhat complicated and long, but it's easier done
> >> interactively than read. :)
> > It would be much more useful to generalize the working logic like the
> > one above and use a function implementation to handle the work here.
>
> As usual with this type of questions, the difficulty is in formalizing
> the requirement.
>
> For instance, if the goal is to break the line after each syntactic
> unit, that's reasonably easy to automatize. But then the first list will
> be 15 lines, so I don't think that's what you want.
>
> But as it stands, there is no "working logic", it's an interactive
> process. And the best the editor can do is make this process easy, by
> letting us navigate through the possible points for inserting line
> breaks, and leaving the choice to us.
>
> This is exactly what the sequence of key presses I suggested does: each
> M-C-f, M-C-d and C-f just means "jump to the next candidate break
> point", with sometimes C-M-f used for jumping over multiple points (such
> as the first list). And you just add a C-j (or RET) whenever you reach a
> point where you would like to break the expression.
>
> If you have a precise way to describe the result you want, I'm sure
> writing a function to do it won't be too difficult.

I think the criterion is readability and perhaps the results shown in
the attachment are desirable.

Regards,
HZ

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