Write best practices and style guide

book/style_guide.md

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+# Best practices
+
+This page is a working document collecting syntax guidelines and best practices we have discovered so far.
+The goal of this document is to eventually land on a canonical Nushell code style, but as for now it is still work in
+progress and subject to change. We welcome discussion and contributions.
+
+Keep in mind that these guidelines are not required to be used in external repositories (not ours), you can change them in the
+way you want, but please be consistent and follow your rules.
+
+All escape sequences should not be interpreted literally, unless directed to do so. In other words,
+treat something like `\n` like the new line character and not a literal slash followed by `n`.
+
+## Formatting
+
+### Defaults
+
+**It's recommended to** assume that by default no spaces or tabs allowed, but the following rules define where they are allowed.
+
+### Basic
+
+- **It's recommended to** put one space before and after pipe `|` symbol, commands, subcommands, their options and arguments.
+- **It's recommended to** never put several consecutive spaces unless they are part of string.
+- **It's recommended to** omit commas between list items.
+
+Correct:
+
+```nushell
+'Hello, Nushell! This is a gradient.' | ansi gradient --fgstart '0x40c9ff' --fgend '0xe81cff'
+```
+
+Incorrect:
+
+```nushell
+# - two many spaces after "|": 2 instead of 1
+'Hello, Nushell! This is a gradient.' |  ansi gradient --fgstart '0x40c9ff' --fgend '0xe81cff'
+```
+
+#### One-line format
+
+One-line format is a format for writing all commands in one line.
+
+**It's recommended to** default to this format:
+
+1. unless you are writing scripts
+2. in scripts for lists and records unless they either:
+   1. more than 80 characters long
+   2. contain nested lists or records
+3. for pipelines less than 80 characters long not containing items should be formatted with
+   a long format
+
+Rules:
+
+1. parameters:
+   1. **It's recommended to** put one space after comma `,` after block or closure parameter.
+   2. **It's recommended to** put one space after pipe `|` symbol denoting block or closure parameter list end.
+2. block and closure bodies:
+   1. **It's recommended to** put one space after opening block or closure curly brace `{` if no explicit parameters defined.
+   2. **It's recommended to** put one space before closing block or closure curly brace `}`.
+3. records:
+   1. **It's recommended to** put one space after `:` after record key.
+   2. **It's recommended to** put one space after comma `,` after key value.
+4. lists:
+   1. **It's recommended to** put one space after comma `,` after list value.
+5. surrounding constructs:
+   1. **It's recommended to** put one space before opening square `[`, curly brace `{`, or parenthesis `(` if preceding symbol is not the same.
+   2. **It's recommended to** put one space after closing square `]`, curly brace `}`, or parenthesis `)` if following symbol is not the same.
+
+Correct:
+
+```nushell
+[[status]; [UP] [UP]] | all {|el| $el.status == UP }
+[1 2 3 4] | reduce {|it, acc| $it + $acc }
+[1 2 3 4] | reduce {|it acc| $it + $acc }
+{x: 1, y: 2}
+{x: 1 y: 2}
+[1 2] | zip [3 4]
+[]
+(1 + 2) * 3
+```
+
+Incorrect:
+
+```nushell
+# too many spaces before "|el|": no space is allowed
+[[status]; [UP] [UP]] | all { |el| $el.status == UP }
+
+# too many spaces before ",": no space is allowed
+[1 2 3 4] | reduce {|it , acc| $it + $acc }
+
+# too many spaces before "x": no space is allowed
+{ x: 1, y: 2}
+
+# too many spaces before "[3": one space is required
+[1 2] | zip  [3 4]
+
+# too many spaces before "]": no space is allowed
+[ ]
+
+# too many spaces before ")": no space is allowed
+(1 + 2 ) * 3
+```
+
+#### Multi-line format
+
+Multi-line format is a format for writing all commands in several lines. It inherits all rules from one-line format
+and modifies them slightly.
+
+**It's recommended to** default to this format:
+
+1. while you are writing scripts
+2. in scripts for lists and records while they either:
+   1. more than 80 characters long
+   2. contain nested lists or records
+3. for pipelines more 80 characters long
+
+Rules:
+
+1. general:
+   1. **It's required to omit** trailing spaces.
+2. block and closure bodies:
+   1. **It's recommended to** put each body pipeline on a separate line.
+3. records:
+   1. **It's recommended to** put each record key-value pair on separate line.
+4. lists:
+   1. **It's recommended to** put each list item on separate line.
+5. surrounding constructs:
+   1. **It's recommended to** put one `\n` before opening square `[`, curly brace `{`, or parenthesis `(` if preceding symbol is not the and applying this rule produce line with a singular parenthesis.
+   2. **It's recommended to** put one `\n` after closing square `]`, curly brace `}`, or parenthesis `)` if following symbol is not the same and applying this rule produce line with a singular parenthesis.
+
+Correct:
+
+```nushell
+[[status]; [UP] [UP]] | all {|el|
+    $el.status == UP
+}
+
+[1 2 3 4] | reduce {|it, acc|
+    $it + $acc
+}
+
+{x: 1, y: 2}
+
+[
+  {name: "Teresa", age: 24},
+  {name: "Thomas", age: 26}
+]
+
+let selectedProfile = (for it in ($credentials | transpose name credentials) {
+    echo $it.name
+})
+```
+
+Incorrect:
+
+```nushell
+# too many spaces before "|el|": no space is allowed (like in one-line format) 
+[[status]; [UP] [UP]] | all { |el|
+    # too few "\n" before "}": one "\n" is required
+    $el.status == UP}
+
+# too many spaces before "2": one space is required (like in one-line format)
+[1  2 3 4] | reduce {|it, acc|
+    $it + $acc
+}
+
+{
+   # too many "\n" before "x": one-line format required as no nested lists or record exist
+   x: 1, 
+   y: 2
+}
+
+# too few "\n" before "{": multi-line format required as there are two nested records
+[{name: "Teresa", age: 24},
+  {name: "Thomas", age: 26}]
+
+let selectedProfile = (
+    # too many "\n" before "foo": no "\n" is allowed
+    for it in ($credentials | transpose name credentials) {
+        echo $it.name
+})
+```
+
+## Options and parameters of custom commands
+
+- **It's recommended to** keep count of all positional parameters less than or equal to 2, for remaining inputs use options. Assume that command can expect source and destination parameter, like `mv`: source and target file or directory.
+- **It's recommended to** use positional parameters unless they can't be used due to rules listed here or technical restrictions.
+  For instance, when there are several kinds of optional parameters (but at least one parameter should be provided)
+  use options. Great example of this is `ansi gradient` command where at least foreground or background must be passed.
+- **It's recommended to** provide both long and short options.
+
+## Documentation
+
+- **It's recommended to** provide documentation for all exported entities (like custom commands) and their
+  inputs (like custom command parameters and options).