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INDENT(1) General Commands Manual INDENT(1)

indent — indent and format C program source

indent [input-file [output-file]] [-bad | -nbad] [-bap | -nbap] [-bbb | -nbbb] [-bc | -nbc] [-bl | -br] [-cn] [-cdn] [-cdb | -ncdb] [-ce | -nce] [-cin] [-clin] [-dn] [-din] [-dj | -ndj] [-ei | -nei] [-fc1 | -nfc1] [-in] [-ip | -nip] [-ln] [-lcn] [-lp | -nlp] [-npro] [-pcs | -npcs] [-psl | -npsl] [-sc | -nsc] [-sob | -nsob] [-st] [-Ttypename] [-troff] [-ut | -nut] [-v | -nv]

indent is a C program formatter. It reformats the C program in the input-file according to the switches. The switches which can be specified are described below. They may appear before or after the file names.

: If you only specify an input-file, the formatting is done “in-place”, that is, the formatted file is written back into input-file and a backup copy of input-file is written in the current directory. If input-file is named /blah/blah/file, the backup file is named file.BAK. If file.BAK exists, it is overwritten.

If output-file is specified, indent checks to make sure it is different from input-file.

If no input-file is specified, input is read from stdin and the formatted file is written to stdout.

The options listed below control the formatting style imposed by indent.

, -nbad
If -bad is specified, a blank line is forced after every block of declarations. Default: -nbad.
, -nbap
If -bap is specified, a blank line is forced after every procedure body. Default: -nbap. Note: This option currently has no effect.
, -nbbb
If -bbb is specified, a blank line is forced before every block comment. Default: -nbbb.
, -nbc
If -bc is specified, then a newline is forced after each comma in a declaration. -nbc turns off this option. The default is -nbc.
, -br
Specifying -bl lines up compound statements like this: 
if (...)
{
  code
}

Specifying -br (the default) makes them look like this:

if (...) {
  code
}
n
The column in which comments on code start. The default is 33.
n
The column in which comments on declarations start. The default is for these comments to start in the same column as those on code.
, -ncdb
Enables (disables) the placement of comment delimiters on blank lines. With this option enabled, comments look like this: 
/*
 * this is a comment
 */

Rather than like this:

/* this is a comment */

This only affects block comments, not comments to the right of code. The default is -cdb.

, -nce
Enables (disables) forcing “else”s to cuddle up to the immediately preceding ‘}’. The default is -ce.
n
Sets the continuation indent to be n. Continuation lines will be indented that far from the beginning of the first line of the statement. Parenthesized expressions have extra indentation added to indicate the nesting, unless -lp is in effect. -ci defaults to the same value as -i.
n
Causes case labels to be indented n tab stops to the right of the containing switch statement. -cli0.5 causes case labels to be indented half a tab stop. The default is -cli0.
n
Controls the placement of comments which are not to the right of code. Specifying -d1 means that such comments are placed one indentation level to the left of code. The default, -d0, lines up these comments with the code. See the section on comment indentation below.
n
Specifies the indentation, in character positions, from a declaration keyword to the following identifier. The default is -di16.
, -ndj
left justifies declarations. -ndj indents declarations the same as code. The default is -ndj.
, -nei
Enables (disables) special else-if processing. If it's enabled, an if following an else will have the same indentation as the preceding if statement. The default is -ei.
, -nfc1
Enables (disables) the formatting of comments that start in column 1. Often, comments whose leading ‘/’ is in column 1 have been carefully formatted by the programmer. In such cases, -nfc1 should be used. The default is -fc1.
n
The number of spaces for one indentation level. The default is 8.
, -nip
Enables (disables) the indentation of parameter declarations from the left margin. The default is -ip. Note: This option currently has no effect.
n
Maximum length of an output line. The default is 75. Note: This option currently has no effect.
n
Specify a column width for comments.
, -nlp
Lines up code surrounded by parentheses in continuation lines. If a line has a left parenthesis which is not closed on that line, then continuation lines will be lined up to start at the character position just after the left parenthesis. For example, here is how a piece of continued code looks with -nlp in effect: 
p1 = first_procedure(second_procedure(p2, p3),
  third_procedure(p4,p5));

With -lp in effect (the default) the code looks somewhat clearer:

p1 = first_procedure(second_procedure(p2, p3),
                     third_procedure(p4,p5));

Inserting two more newlines we get:

p1 = first_procedure(second_procedure(p2,
                                      p3),
                     third_procedure(p4,
                                     p5));

The default is -lp.

Causes the profile files, ./.indent.pro and ~/.indent.pro, to be ignored.
, -npcs
If true (-pcs), all procedure calls will have a space inserted between the name and the ‘(’. The default is -npcs.
, -npsl
If true (-psl), the names of procedures being defined are placed in column 1 - their types, if any, will be left on the previous lines. The default is -psl.
, -nsc
Enables (disables) the placement of asterisks (‘*’) at the left edge of all comments. The default is -sc.
, -nsob
If -sob is specified, indent will swallow optional blank lines. You can use this to get rid of blank lines after declarations. Default: -nsob. Note: This option currently has no effect.
Causes indent to take its input from stdin, and put its output to stdout.
typename
Adds typename to the list of type keywords. Names accumulate: -T can be specified more than once. You need to specify all the typenames that appear in your program that are defined by typedef - nothing will be harmed if you miss a few, but the program won't be formatted as nicely as it should. This sounds like a painful thing to have to do, but it's really a symptom of a problem in C: typedef causes a syntactic change in the language and indent can't find all instances of typedef.
Causes indent to format the program for processing by troff, producing a fancy listing. If the output file is not specified, the default is standard output, rather than formatting in place.
, -nut
Enables (disables) the use of tab characters in the output. Tabs are assumed to be aligned on columns divisible by 8. The default is -ut.
, -nv
turns on “verbose” mode; -nv turns it off. When in verbose mode, indent reports when it splits one line of input into two or more lines of output, and gives some size statistics at completion. The default is -nv.

You may set up your own “profile” of defaults to indent by creating a file called .indent.pro in your login directory and/or the current directory and including whatever switches you like. An .indent.pro file in the current directory takes precedence over the one in your login directory. If indent is run and a profile file exists, then it is read to set up the program's defaults. Switches on the command line, though, always override profile switches. The switches should be separated by spaces, tabs or newlines.

‘’ . indent assumes that any comment with a dash, star, or newline immediately after the start of comment (that is, ‘/*-’, ‘/**’, or ‘/*’ followed immediately by a newline character) is a comment surrounded by a box of stars. Each line of such a comment is left unchanged, except that its indentation may be adjusted to account for the change in indentation of the first line of the comment.

. All other comments are treated as straight text. indent fits as many words (separated by blanks, tabs, or newlines) on a line as possible. Blank lines break paragraphs.

If a comment is on a line with code it is started in the “comment column”, which is set by the -cn command line parameter. Otherwise, the comment is started at n indentation levels less than where code is currently being placed, where n is specified by the -dn command line parameter. If the code on a line extends past the comment column, the comment starts further to the right, and the right margin may be automatically extended in extreme cases.

In general, indent leaves preprocessor lines alone. The only reformatting that it will do is to straighten up trailing comments. It leaves embedded comments alone. Conditional compilation (#ifdef...#endif) is recognized and indent attempts to correctly compensate for the syntactic peculiarities introduced.

indent understands a substantial amount about the syntax of C, but it has a “forgiving” parser. It attempts to cope with the usual sorts of incomplete and malformed syntax. In particular, the use of macros like:

#define forever for(;;)

is handled properly.

Used to locate the full path to ~/.indent.pro.

./.indent.pro
profile file
~/.indent.pro
profile file

The indent command appeared in 4.2BSD.

indent has even more switches than ls(1).

A common mistake is to try to indent all the C programs in a directory by typing:

$ indent *.c

This is probably a bug, not a feature.

December 26, 2022 openbsd