PL/SQL & SQL Formatter Settings

Introduction

This repository provides formatter settings for the coding style rules of the Trivadis PL/SQL & SQL Coding Guidelines.

Settings are primarily provided for

• Oracle SQLcl, Version 23.4.0
• Oracle SQL Developer, Version 23.1.1.345 (requires dbtools-common.jar from SQLcl 23.4.0 using ParseNode.class from SQL Developer 23.1.1.345)

These settings have been defined and tested with the product versions mentioned above. They might not work in other versions.

Please note, that these settings cannot be used in Oracle SQL Developer for VSCode 23.4.0. And it does not work in the embedded version of SQLcl 23.3.1.0, which cannot run JavaScript.

JDK 11 is required for SQLDev and SQLcl. The standalone tvdformat.jar requires JDK 17 or newer.

See releases for settings supporting older versions.

Patching SQL Developer

SQL Developer is slowly reaching the end of its life cycle. The days when SQL Developer and SQLcl were released almost simultaneously every quarter are long gone. We can continue to expect regular SQLcl releases, but with the availability of SQL Developer as a Visual Studio Code Extension, SQL Developer will only be updated sporadically.

A new SQLcl version typically comes with enhancements and bug fixes in the area of PL/SQL and SQL grammar. And this also requires an adaptation of the formatting rules due to symbol name changes etc. And as a result, these formatting rules can actually only be used in SQLcl.

However, we know that the grammars and the formatter are provided in a JAR called dbtools-common.jar. And this JAR file also exists in the SQL Developer distribution. This means that in order to be able to use the current formatting rules in SQL Developer, we have to copy the dbtools-common.jar file from SQLcl to SQL Developer. Unfortunatelly the classes are not 100% compatible with SQL Developer. As a a result, we have to keep some original classes, which complicates the patching process a bit.

Here's the full procedure to use dbtools-common.jar from SQLcl 23.4.0 in SQL Developer 23.1.1.345:

1. Quit SQL Developer

   We are going to patch SQL Developer. This is not possible on Windows if SQL Developer is running. On other OS this might have strange effects. Therefore quit SQL Developer.

2. Rename SQL Developer’s dbtools-common.jar

   Find the dbtools-common.jar in your SQL Developer installation. In our case it's in /Applications/SQLDeveloper.app/Contents/Resources/sqldeveloper/sqldeveloper/lib. Rename this file to dbtools-common.original.jar.

3. Copy SQLcl’s dbtools-common.jar

   Find the dbtools-common.jar in your SQLcl installation. In our case it's in /usr/local/bin/sqlcl/lib. Copy the file to the SQL Developer’s directory (where dbtools-common.original.jar is located).

4. Patch SQLcl's dbtools-common.jar

   Open a terminal window in the lib folder where dbtools-common.original.jar and dbtools-commmon.jar are located and run the following commands to copy the class oracle.dbtools.parser.ParserNode.class to dbtools-common.jar:

   jar -xvf dbtools-common.original.jar oracle/dbtools/parser/ParseNode.class
   jar -u0vMf dbtools-common.jar oracle/dbtools
   rm -rf oracle
   

   This step is necessary to ensure that the "Code Outline" continues to work in SQL Developer.

5. Clear SQL Developer's cache

   Delete the following directory:

   • On Windows: %APPDATA%\SQL Developer\system23.1.1.345.2114\system_cache
   • On other platforms: $HOME/.sqldeveloper/system23.1.1.345.2114/system_cache

   This step is necessary to ensure no other version of dbtools-common.jar is used from the cache. All window preferences will be reset to factory settings. However, all other preferences including your connections are preserved.

6. Start SQL Developer

   Open an editor and test if the formatter and code outline is working.

Deviating Settings

Please note that these settings do not comply with rule 5. Line breaks are placed after a comma and not before. All other rules are followed. However, you can easily change this in the preferences.

Installation

Common

Clone this repository or download the ZIP file and extract it.

SQLcl

See sqlcl/README.md.

Standalone Formatter

See standalone/README.md

SQL Developer

1. Start SQL Developer
2. Open Preferences
3. Select Code Editor -> Format -> Advanced Format
4. Press Import...
5. Select trivadis_advanced_format.xml
6. Press Open
7. Select Code Editor -> Format -> Advanced Format -> Custom Format
8. Press Import...
9. Select trivadis_custom_format.arbori
10. Press Open
11. Press OK to save the settings

Git pre-commit Hook

See hook/README.md.

Nice to Know

Lightweight Formatter

The Arbori program implements a lightweight formatter which accepts different coding styles. The primary scope of the formatter is the following SQL statements:

• create function
• create package
• create package body
• create procedure
• create trigger
• create type
• create type body
• create view (including the subquery part of create materialized view)
• delete
• insert
• merge
• select
• update

Other statements like create table or create tablespace are basically left as is. There are some exceptions like adding line breaks after reaching the maximum line length and changing the case of keywords and identifiers. But that's it.

If you need a heavyweight formatter to enforce the conformity of your code, you will need to use the default Arbori program provided by the SQL Developer team.

In any case, you can use our SQLcl JavaScript format.js, the standalone formatter or the Git pre-commit hook to format your code.

Disable Formatter

The formatter is enabled by default. You can disable the formatter with a single-line or multi-line comment containing @formatter:off. From that point on, whitespace are kept as is. To re-enable the formatter use @formatter:on.

The marker comments are case sensitive.

Here's an example showing the code after calling the formatter:

-- @formatter:off
select decode(dummy, 'X', 1 
                   , 'Y', 2
                   , 'Z', 3
                        , 0) /* @formatter:on */
  from dual;

Arbori

SQL Developer uses its own parse tree query language called Arbori for its advanced formatter configuration. Here is some additional information that might be useful if you plan to tweak the behavior of the formatter yourself.

Links

• SQL Developer 23.1 User Guide, Code Editor: Format
• Formatting Code With SQL Developer
• Formatter Callback Functions
• Arbori Starter Manual
• Semantic Analysis with Arbori
• Arbori Semantic Actions
• Custom Formatting in SQLDev 4.2
• Formula for Formatting
• Custom Syntax Coloring
• Arbori 20.2
• Java Script Conditions

Thank you, Vadim Tropashko for providing this valuable information.

JavaScript Global Variables

To get the most out of the dynamic JavaScript actions from an Arbori program, you should know the following global variables and their corresponding Java class.

Settings for other Products

Formatter settings are also provided for the following products:

Please refer to the vendor's documentation for instructions on how to import these settings.

License

The Trivadis PL/SQL & SQL Formatter Settings are licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. You may obtain a copy of the License at http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.