<\/i>Content outdated<\/strong><\/p> For up-to-date documentation see Options, Text Editor, C\/C++, Formatting – Visual Studio (Windows)<\/span><\/span><\/a>.<\/div>Visual Studio 2017 15.7 Preview 1 comes with built-in ClangFormat <\/a>support for C++ developers. Specifically, we ship version 5.0 of the clang-format.exe. ClangFormat is a utility that makes it easy to style and format your code based on a set of rules that can be configured in a .clang-format or _clang-format file. This file should be present in your source code directory tree, and applies formatting conventions to all code files at the same level or in any sub-folders. It is easily shareable via source control, so you can enforce coding conventions across your whole development team.<\/p>\n Note that Visual Studio also supports EditorConfig<\/a>, which works in a similar way. ClangFormat, however, has a much larger variety of style options<\/a> than EditorConfig, including some very C++ specific rules that can be set, and it is already used by C++ developers today.<\/p>\n You can use multiple ClangFormat files to apply different styling rules at different locations in your codebase, if desired, by placing files in different folders. Any given code file will be styled by the ClangFormat file closest to it in the directory tree. We run the ClangFormat utility in the background to do the formatting, so you get all of ClangFormat\u2019s features right away.<\/p>\n We also provide a way to enforce the built-in formatting conventions that ClangFormat ships with (LLVM, Google, Chromium, Mozilla, or WebKit) without requiring a separate ClangFormat file. This is the same as having the file there with the -style<\/em> switch set to one of these conventions. This can be configured in Tools > Options.<\/p>\n Using the .clang-format file in the screenshot above, here is a before and after representation of a code sample when Format Document<\/em> is invoked on it:<\/p>\n Some of the noticeable changes here include the maximum column width (now set to 50), and the presence of the opening curly brace on the same line as the header preceding it.<\/p>\n If you already have a .clang-format or _clang-format file in your codebase, you will notice Visual Studio uses it for formatting immediately, as soon as you make an edit in your code that would trigger a formatting operation. ClangFormat also runs if you run the Format Document<\/strong> (Ctrl+K, Ctrl+D) or Format Selection<\/strong> (Ctrl + K, Ctrl + F) commands from the Edit menu or keyboard shortcuts manually in Visual Studio.<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t already have a sample file to get started with, there is a handy website <\/a>that features an interactive .clang-format file builder and guide to ClangFormat styling options in general. For the complete list of ClangFormat style options, visit the official documentation<\/a>.<\/p>\n There are a number of configurations you can make in Tools > Options to control your ClangFormat experience. You can find them at Tools > Options > Text Editor > C\/C++ > Formatting<\/em>.<\/p>\n![\".clang-format](\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2019\/02\/ClangFormat-File.png\")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2019\/02\/Code-before.png\")
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<\/a>How to get started<\/h3>\n
Tools > Options configuration<\/h3>\n
![\"ClangFormat](\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2019\/02\/ClangFormat-Options.png\")
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