Command-line usage

The Rust crate for Ardent consists of two parts: the library for use in other Rust projects and the CLI tool. On this page you’ll learn how to use ardent on the command-line.

Commands

help

Once you’ve completed the installation, Ardent should be available in your shell. Running ardent without extra arguments will print available sub-commands and flags:

Opinionated formatter for NSIS scripts

Usage: ardent [OPTIONS] [COMMAND]

Commands:
  format  Format NSIS scripts
  check   Check if NSIS scripts are formatted correctly
  help    Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)

Options:
  -D, --debug    Print debug messages
  -h, --help     Print help
  -V, --version  Print version

format

The format sub-command allows the formatting of NSIS scripts. By default, the output is printed to stdout. You may use the --write flag to apply the formatting changes in-place.

See ardent format --help for a list of all options.

check

The check sub-command will report whether an NSIS script requires formatting. Using the --write flag will apply the changes in-place, while the --diff flag will visualize the formatting changes.

See ardent check --help for a list of all options.

Options

Caution

Ardent is an opinionated formatter and the surface to change the default options is intentionally kept small. It’s recommended to stick to the defaults.

--eol

Control how line-breaks are represented. Ardent follows the operating system defaults – CRLF on Windows and LF elsewhere. Accepts crlf or lf.

--indent-size

Number of units per indentation level. Defaults to 2.

--use-spaces

Ardent encourages the use of tabs. While there are often pseudo-religious reasons for choosing tabs or spaces, we prefer tabs for a single practical reason: tabs are preferred by visually impaired programmers, so tabs provide better accessibility. However, you may override it using this flag.

--single-quote

Prefer single quotes instead of double quotes.

--comment-style

Specify whether you want to unify comment markers to #or ;. Block comments are never touched. Accepts hash or semi.

--no-trim

Ardent will collapse multiple empty lines. Using this flag will prevent this.

--print-width

Ardent uses a print width of 120 characters. This flag allows changing the default value. Setting it to 0 will disable it.