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:

🍁 Ardent is an opinionated code formatter for NSIS scripts

Usage: ardent [OPTIONS] [COMMAND]

Commands:
  format  Command to format NSIS scripts
  check   Command to 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
      --completions <SHELL>  Print a shell completion script
  -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.

--completions

The --completions flag prints a shell completion script to stdout, so that pressing Tab offers Ardent’s sub-commands and flags. It accepts bash, elvish, fish, powershell or zsh.

Note

Completion scripts are generated from the command-line interface as it is at the time you run the command. Re-run it after upgrading Ardent, otherwise new sub-commands and flags won’t be offered.

Homebrew users will get the completions by default.

Ardent only prints the script — where it belongs is up to your shell, so redirect it accordingly.

Powershell

New-Item -ItemType File -Path $PROFILE -Force | Out-Null
ardent --completions powershell | Out-File -Append -Encoding utf8 $PROFILE

Bash

# bash, which requires bash-completion to be installed
ardent --completions bash > ~/.local/share/bash-completion/completions/ardent

Fish

# fish, which needs no further setup
ardent --completions fish > ~/.config/fish/completions/ardent.fish

Start a new shell session for any of the above to take effect.

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.