Code Style

Coding conventions of the core and how to apply them with clang-format and clang-tidy.

The core has a .clang-format and a .clang-tidy file in the root of its repository. Format your code with them before sending a change; this page sums up what they and the existing code expect.

Formatting

  • Indentation with tabs, 4 columns wide.
  • Lines up to 100 columns.
  • Opening braces on the same line as the statement.
  • The rest follows the Mozilla style that .clang-format is based on.
namespace plugify {
    class Example {
    public:
        Result<void> Run(std::string_view name) {
            if (name.empty()) {
                return MakeError("Name is empty");
            }
            return {};
        }
    };
}

Naming

WhatStyleExample
Classes, structs, enums, functions, methodsPascalCaseExtensionLoader, GetManager()
InterfacesI + PascalCaseILanguageModule, ILogger
Local variables, parameters, public fieldscamelCasebaseDir, printReport
Private members_camelCase_impl, _data
Constantsk + PascalCasekMaxFuncArgs
Enum valuesPascalCaseExtensionState::Running

Headers and comments

  • #pragma once in every header.
  • Public headers in include/plugify/ hide their implementation behind a pointer (struct Impl; std::unique_ptr<Impl> _impl;), so the layout of exported classes does not change when the implementation does.
  • Document public API with Doxygen comments: /** @brief ... */ before a declaration and ///< after a field.
  • Errors are returned as Result<T> (std::expected<T, std::string>), not thrown.

Tools

Format a file in place:

clang-format -i src/core/manager.cpp

Run the static analysis on a file, using the compile commands of your build folder:

clang-tidy -p build src/core/manager.cpp

The CMake option PLUGIFY_USE_CLANG_TIDY=ON runs clang-tidy as part of the build. Most IDEs (Visual Studio, CLion, VS Code) pick up both files automatically.

Edit this page on GitHub
How to Contribute
How to report problems and send changes to Plugify and its documentation.
Error Handling
Which errors the core catches, and how plugins should handle errors in methods they export.