CLion 2020.1 Help

Reformat and rearrange code

CLion lets you reformat your code according to the requirements you've specified in the Code Style settings.

To access the settings, in the Settings/Preferences dialog Ctrl+Alt+S, go to Editor | Code Style. See Configuring code style for details.

You can reformat a part of code, the whole file, group of files, a directory, and a module. You can also exclude part of code or some files from the reformatting.

Reformat a code fragment in a file

  1. In the editor, select a code fragment you want to reformat.

  2. From the main menu, select Code | Reformat Ctrl+Alt+L.

Reformat a file

  1. Either open your file in the editor and press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+L or in the Project tool window, right-click the file and select Reformat Code.

  2. In the dialog that opens, if you need, select the following reformatting options:

    • Optimize imports: select this option if you want to remove unused imports, add missing ones, or organize import statements.

    • Clean up code: select this option to run the code cleanup inspections.

    Click OK.

    If you want to see the exact changes made to your code during the reformatting, use the Local History feature.

Reformat line indents

You can reformat line indents based on the specified settings.

  1. While in the editor, select the necessary code fragment and press Ctrl+Alt+I.

  2. If you need to adjust indentation settings, in the Settings/Preferences dialog Ctrl+Alt+S, go to Editor | Code Style.

  3. On the appropriate language page, on the Tabs and Indents tab, specify the appropriate indents options and click OK.

Exclude code fragments from reformatting in the editor

  1. In the Settings/Preferences dialog Ctrl+Alt+S, go to Editor | Code Style and select the Enable formatter markers in comments checkbox on the Formatter Control tab.

  2. In the editor, at the beginning of a region that you want to exclude, create a line comment Ctrl+/ and type //@formatter:off, at the end of the region, again create a line comment and type //@formatter:on.

Keep existing formatting

You can select formatting rules which will be ignored when you reformat the code. For example, you can adjust the IDE to keep simple methods and functions in one line, whereas normally they are expanded into multiple lines after code reformatting.

  1. Go to Settings/Preferences | Editor | Code Style, select your programming language, and open the Wrapping and Braces tab.

  2. In the Keep when reformatting section, select the formatting rules which you want to ignore and deselect those which should be applied.

  3. Reformat your code (Ctrl+Alt+L).

CLion will reformat your code in accordance with the current style settings, keeping existing formatting for the rules which you've selected.

Last modified: 23 July 2020