Prettier Apex

🥇 Intro

Prettier Apex is an opinionated code formatter for the Apex programming language that focuses on correctness and consistency of the formatted code. It uses the excellent Prettier engine for formatting, as well as following Prettier's philosophy.

Prettier Apex allows Salesforce development teams to enforce a consistent code style, while being able to focus on writing code instead of debating how their code should be formatted.

Since it is built on top of jorje, Salesforce's own internal parser, it is able to format Apex code with a very high degree of accuracy. In short, Prettier Apex parses your code the same way that the Salesforce platform does, and it has been tested extensively to make sure your code does not change behavior after formatting.

⚡️ Quick start

You can automatically format Apex code in our playground without having to install anything.

To integrate Prettier Apex in your workflow, please follow the Usage section.

✨ Status

This project is production ready, and has been tested on multiple projects, including a mix of open source/proprietary/Salesforce internal code bases.

📖 Usage

Requirements

• Node >= 18.11.0 (that have not been End-of-Life'd)
• Java Runtime Engine >= 11 only for platforms without prebuilt native executables
• The following platforms are provided with prebuilt native executables for improved parsing performance:
  • Windows x64
  • Linux x64
  • macOS M-based (ARM64)
  • macOS Intel-based (x64)

How to use

First, install the library:

# Install locally
npm install --save-dev prettier prettier-plugin-apex

# Or install globally
npm install --global prettier prettier-plugin-apex

If you install globally, run:

prettier --plugin=prettier-plugin-apex --write "/path/to/project/**/*.{trigger,cls}"

If you install locally, you can add prettier as a script in package.json:

{
  "scripts": {
    "prettier": "prettier"
  }
}

Then in order to run it:

npm run prettier -- --plugin=prettier-plugin-apex --write "/path/to/project/**/*.{trigger,cls}"

Tips

Initial run

If you are formatting a big code base for the first time, please make sure that you have some form of version control in place, so that you can revert any change if necessary. You should also run Prettier with the --debug-check argument. For example:

prettier --plugin=prettier-plugin-apex --debug-check "/path/to/project/**/*.{trigger,cls}"

This will guarantee that the behavior of your code will not change because of the format.

If there are no errors, you can run prettier with --write next. If there are errors, please file a bug report so that they can be fixed.

Anonymous Apex

You can also format anonymous Apex with this program by using the apex-anonymous parser.

For example:

prettier --write "/path/to/project/anonymous/**/*.cls" --plugin=prettier-plugin-apex --parser apex-anonymous

Note that Prettier will treat any Apex file that it finds using the glob above as anonymous code blocks, so it is recommended that you collect all of your anonymous Apex files into one directory and limit the use of --apex-anonymous only in that directory.

Ignoring lines

If there are lines in your Apex code that you do not want formatted by Prettier (either because you don't agree with the formatting choice, or there is a bug), you can instruct Prettier to ignore it by including the comment // prettier-ignore or /* prettier-ignore */ on the line before. For example:

// prettier-ignore
matrix(
  1, 0, 0,
  0, 1, 0,
  0, 0, 1
)

Checking your plugin version

For debugging purposes, you might want to check which version of the plugin you are using.

Use NPM's list command, like this:

npm list prettier-plugin-apex

Configuration

This library follows the same configuration format as Prettier, which is documented here.

The amount of configuration is very limited, because this is intended to be a very opinionated formatter. Here is the default configuration that can be overriden:

Name	Default	Description
printWidth	80	Same as in Prettier (see prettier docs)
tabWidth	2	Same as in Prettier (see prettier docs)
useTabs	false	Same as in Prettier (see prettier docs)
requirePragma	false	Same as in Prettier (see prettier docs)
insertPragma	false	Same as in Prettier (see prettier docs)
apexInsertFinalNewline	true	Whether a newline is added as the last thing in the output
apexStandaloneParser	native	If set to built-in, Prettier uses the built in standalone parser for better performance. See Using built-in HTTP Server. If set to none, Prettier invokes the Java CLI parser for every file. If set to native, Prettier uses the native executables to speed up the parsing process, with fallback to the Java CLI parser.
apexStandalonePort	2117	The port that the standalone Apex parser listens on. Only applicable if apexStandaloneParser is built-in.
apexStandaloneHost	localhost	The host that the standalone Apex parser listens on. Only applicable if apexStandaloneParser is built-in.
apexStandaloneProtocol	http	The protocol that the standalone Apex parser uses. Only applicable if apexStandaloneParser is built-in.

📝 Editor integration

VScode

Follow this tutorial from Salesforce in order to use this plugin in VSCode.

🚀 Performance Tips/3rd party integration

💻 Using built-in HTTP Server

‼️ Prettier Apex is now shipped with native executables for most popular platforms that significantly enhance the parsing performance. You should try this default configuration first before considering the built-in HTTP server.

By default, this library invokes a CLI application to get the AST of the Apex code. However, since this CLI application is written in Java, there is a heavy start up cost associated with it. In order to alleviate this issue, we also have an optional HTTP server that makes sure the start up is invoked exactly once. This is especially useful if this library is integrated in a 3rd party application.

In order to use this server, you have to evoke it out of band before running Prettier, as well as specifying a special flag when running Prettier:

# Start the server (if installed globally)
start-apex-server
# Or if installed locally
npx start-apex-server

# In a separate console
prettier --apex-standalone-parser built-in --write "/path/to/project/**/*.{trigger,cls}"

# After you are done, stop the server (if installed globally)
stop-apex-server
# Or if installed locally
npx stop-apex-server

By default, the server listens on http://localhost:2117. This can be customized by specifying the --host and --port arguments:

start-apex-server --host 127.0.0.1 --port 2118

🚢 Continuous Integration

Prettier Apex can be used to automatically check correct formatting for Apex code in the context of CI/CD, for example:

Using default configuration

prettier --plugin=prettier-plugin-apex --check 'project/**/*.{trigger,cls}'

Using built-in HTTP Server

# Start the language server for improved parsing performance,
# and put it in the background (*nix only) so that next commands can be run.
nohup start-apex-server >/dev/null 2>&1 &
# Wait until the server is up before sending requests
npx wait-on http://localhost:2117/api/ast/
# Check that Apex files are formatted according to Prettier Apex style
prettier --plugin=prettier-plugin-apex --check 'project/**/*.{trigger,cls}' --apex-standalone-parser built-in
# Clean up the language server
stop-apex-server