Align groups of assignments (=)

[hanpq]

I made the below feature request in the vscode-powershell extension git and was enlightened that this functionality originate from the PSScriptAnalyzer module. PowerShell/vscode-powershell#1385

I would love to see an option to allow alignment of assignmentgroups. Its easiest to show what I mean with an example. (Github wouldn't allow me to format the code manually and trimmed the whitespaces automatically so I had to attach a printscreen).

So that '=' are aligned in columns within a group of assignments. A group could be interpreted as delimitered with a blank line.

[sheldonhull]

I do this manually worry alignment extension, but when applying the settings from this it eliminates the alignment, so I'd agree this would be nice to have.

[bergmeister]

There is already a rule called PSAlignAssignmentStatement for that, which maps to the VSCode settting powershell.codeFormatting.alignPropertyValuePairs but it only applies to assignment statements in a hashtable or a DSC Configuration.
I think your proposal would best fit into the existing rule by adding an optional customisation to it.

[ryan-jan]

I'm interested in people's opinion on this. I personally think adding this many blank spaces is unnecessary and actually often ends up in increasing line length to the point that you have to break onto the line below. I would not agree that this is desirable behavior as the default.

[hanpq]

Personally I quite never experience that issue so it might be related to window width/editor width rather than the length of the line itself. I would say that it boils down to personal preference. Anyways my intent was that it would be an option, not necessarily the default behavior.

[ryan-jan]

I am talking about having to break line because you are sticking to a set line length, for example 115 characters, which is seen as a good practice generally in most programming languages.

[hanpq]

Of course, but I still rarely have issues with exceeding that line length, maybe naming could be the reason why you often exceed that length? Still I would argue that it comes down to personal preference and if the setting does not fit your way of coding you are free to enable/disable it.

[bergmeister]

@ryan-jan @hanpq VS-Code has the editor.rulers setting to visually show you if you exceed the recommended/maximum line length, if you want to enforce this in CI, then a Pester test would be a good solution for the moment as I do not see such a rule as high priority (but we are open to PRs so feel free to create such a rule as long as it does not get used by default, I am happy to help and give pointers).

[hanpq]

@bergmeister How do you mean? I'm afraid the discussion is drifting off topic, how is that connected to alignment of assignment groups?

[bergmeister]

@hanpq This was just a general comment if line length is a concern

[hanpq]

Ah ok :)

[kvprasoon]

I'm in 1.17.1 version and Invoke-Formatter is capable to do this . But Invoke-ScriptAnalyzer doesn't catch this.