Re: run pgindent on a regular basis / scripted manner

On Wed, Aug 12, 2020 at 07:47:01PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> Jesse Zhang <sbjesse(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> > On Wed, Aug 12, 2020 at 3:34 PM Andres Freund wrote:
> >> Is there any reason we don't just automatically run pgindent regularly?
> >> Like once a week? And also update typedefs.list automatically, while
> >> we're at it?
>
> > You know what's better than weekly? Every check-in.
>
> I'm not in favor of unsupervised pgindent runs, really. It can do a lot
> of damage to code that was written without thinking about it --- in
> particular, it'll make a hash of comment blocks that were manually
> formatted and not protected with dashes.
>
> If the workflow is commit first and re-indent later, then we can always
> revert the pgindent commit and clean things up manually; but an auto
> re-indent during commit wouldn't provide that history.

There are competing implementations of assuring pgindent-cleanliness at every
check-in:

1. After each push, an automated followup commit appears, restoring
pgindent-cleanliness.
2. "git push" results in a commit that melds pgindent changes into what the
committer tried to push.
3. "git push" fails, for the master branch, if the pushed commit disrupts
pgindent-cleanliness.

Were you thinking of (2)? (1) doesn't have the lack-of-history problem, but
it does have the unexpected-damage problem, and it makes gitweb noisier. (3)
has neither problem, and I'd prefer it over (1), (2), or $SUBJECT.

Regarding typedefs.list, I would use the in-tree one, like you discussed here:

On Wed, Aug 12, 2020 at 07:57:29PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> Maybe the secret is to not allow automated adoption of new typedefs.list
> entries, but to require somebody to add entries to that file by hand,
> even if they're basing it on the buildfarm results. (This would
> encourage the habit some people have adopted of updating typedefs.list
> along with commits that add typedefs. I've never done that, but would
> be willing to change if there's good motivation to.)