Style Tips

Style Tips

Having your editor take care of formatting for you can save headaches during the acceptance process.

VIM

Adding the following setting to your .vimrc will make adhering to the HACKING and msftidy.rb guidelines considerably easier.

set shiftwidth=4 tabstab=4 softabstop=4
" textwidth affects `gq` which is handy for formatting comments
set textwidth=78
" Metasploit generally requires hard tabs instead of spaces
set noexpandtab
" Highlight spaces at EOL and mixed tabs and spaces.
hi BogusWhitespace ctermbg=darkgreen guibg=darkgreen
match BogusWhitespace /\s\+$\|^\t\+ \+\|^ \+\t\+/

If you'd rather these settings only apply to ruby files, you can use an autogroup and autocommands.

if !exists("au_loaded")
    let au_loaded = 1
    augroup rb
        au FileType ruby set shiftwidth=4 tabstab=4 softabstop=4 textwidth=78
        au FileType ruby set noexpandtab
        au FileType ruby hi BogusWhitespace ctermbg=darkgreen guibg=darkgreen
        au FileType ruby match BogusWhitespace /\s\+$\|^\t\+ \+\|^ \+\t\+/
    augroup END
endif

You can also use :set list to see all whitespace as distinct characters to make it easier to see errant whitespace.