Re: [PATCH v2 1/3] clang-format: change column limit to 96 characters

[Kyle Lippincott <spectral@google.com>]

On Thu, Oct 10, 2024 at 11:00 AM Karthik Nayak <karthik.188@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The current value for the column limit is set to 80. While this is as
> expected, we often prefer readability over this strict limit. This means
> it is common to find code which extends over 80 characters. So let's
> change the column limit to be 96 instead. This provides some slack so we
> can ensure readability takes preference over the 80 character hard
> limit.
>
> Signed-off-by: Karthik Nayak <karthik.188@gmail.com>
> ---
>  .clang-format | 5 ++++-
>  1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/.clang-format b/.clang-format
> index 41969eca4b..684ab32d28 100644
> --- a/.clang-format
> +++ b/.clang-format
> @@ -12,7 +12,10 @@ UseTab: Always
>  TabWidth: 8
>  IndentWidth: 8
>  ContinuationIndentWidth: 8
> -ColumnLimit: 80
> +
> +# While we recommend keeping column limit to 80, we want to also provide
> +# some slack to maintain readability.
> +ColumnLimit: 96
>
>  # C Language specifics
>  Language: Cpp
> --
> 2.47.0
>
>

I think this means that the next automated `clang-format` invocation
will un-wrap lines that were wrapped at 80 columns (not characters)
but fit in 96 columns. Modifying this setting and running
`clang-format -i *.{c,h}` produces a lot of diffs of that kind. I
don't think there's a way of setting a soft column limit in
clang-format.

Personally, I'd be fine with a higher column limit, but we'd need to
make a conscious change to the style guidelines for that.