Lintspaces

A node module for checking spaces in files.

Tasks

If you're looking for a gruntjs or gulpjs task to validate your files, take a look at these ones:

• grunt-lintspaces
• gulp-lintspaces by AlbertoElias

CLI

There is also a lintspaces CLI available written by evanshortiss.

Installation

This package is available on npm as: lintspaces

	npm install lintspaces

Usage

To run the lintspaces validator on one or multiple files take a look at the following example:

	var Validator = require('lintspaces');

	var validator = new Validator({/* options */});
	validator.validate('/path/to/file.ext');
	validator.validate('/path/to/other/file.ext');

	var results = validator.getInvalidFiles();

The response of getInvalidFiles() contains an object. Each key of this object is a filepath which contains validation errors.

Under each filepath there is an other object with at least one key. Those key(s) are the specific linenumbers of the file containing an array with errors.

The following lines shows the structure of the validation result in JSON notation:

	{
		"/path/to/file.ext": {
			"3": [
				{
					"line": 3,
					"code": "INDENTATION_TABS",
					"type": "warning",
					"message": "Unexpected spaces found."
				},
				{
					"line": 3,
					"code": "TRAILINGSPACES",
					"type": "warning",
					"message": "Unexpected trailing spaces found."
				}
			],
			"12": [
				{
					"line": 12,
					"code": "NEWLINE",
					"type": "warning",
					"message": "Expected a newline at the end of the file."
				}
			]
		},
		"/path/to/other/file.ext": {
			"5": [
				{
					"line": 5,
					"code": "NEWLINE_AMOUNT",
					"type": "warning",
					"message": "Unexpected additional newlines at the end of the file."
				}
			]
		}
	}

Options

newline at end of file option

Tests for newlines at the end of all files. Default value is false.

	newline: true

• returns code NEWLINE, when a missing a newline at the end of the file.
• returns code NEWLINE_AMOUNT, when found unexpected additional newlines at the end of a file.
• returns type warning

maximum newlines option

Test for the maximum amount of newlines between code blocks. Default value is false. To enable this validation a number larger than 0 is expected.

	newlineMaximum: 2

• returns code NEWLINE_MAXIMUM, when maximum amount of newlines exceeded between code blocks.
• returns type warning

trailingspaces option

Tests for useless whitespaces (trailing whitespaces) at each lineending of all files. Default value is false.

	trailingspaces: true

• returns code TRAILINGSPACES, when unexpected trailing spaces were found.
• returns type warning

Note: If you like to to skip empty lines from reporting (for whatever reason), use the option trailingspacesSkipBlanks and set them to true.

indentation options

Tests for correct indentation using tabs or spaces. Default value is false. To enable indentation check use the value 'tabs' or 'spaces'.

	indentation: 'tabs'

• returns code INDENTATION_TABS, when spaces are used instead of tabs.
• returns type warning

If the indentation option is set to 'spaces', there is also the possibility to set the amount of spaces per indentation using the spaces option. Default value is 4.

	indentation: 'spaces',
	spaces: 2

• returns code INDENTATION_SPACES, when tabs are used instead of spaces.
• returns code INDENTATION_SPACES_AMOUNT, when spaces are used but the amound is not as expected.
• returns type warning

guess indentation option

This indentationGuess option tries to guess the indention of a line depending on previous lines. The report of this option can be incorrect, because the correct indentation depends on the actual programming language and styleguide of the certain file. The default value is false - disabled.

This feature follows the following rules: The indentation of the current line is correct when:

• the amount of indentations is equal to the previous or
• the amount of indentations is less than the previous line or
• the amount of indentations is one more than the previous line
• the amount of indentations is zero and the lines length is also zero which is an empty line without trailing whitespaces

	indentationGuess: true

• returns code NEWLINE_GUESS
• returns type hint

allowsBOM option

Lintspaces fails with incorrect indentation errors when files contain Byte Order Marks (BOM). If you don't want to give false positives for inconsistent tabs or spaces, set the allowsBOM option to true. The default value is false - disabled.

	allowsBOM: true

ignores option

Use the ignores option when special lines such as comments should be ignored. Provide an array of regular expressions to the ignores property.

	ignores: [
		/\/\*[\s\S]*?\*\//g,
		/foo bar/g
	]

There are some build in ignores for comments which you can apply by using these strings:

• 'js-comments'
• 'c-comments'
• 'java-comments'
• 'as-comments'
• 'xml-comments'
• 'html-comments'
• 'python-comments'
• 'ruby-comments'
• 'applescript-comments'

(build in strings and userdefined regular expressions are mixable in the ignores array)

	ignores: [
		'js-comments',
		/foo bar/g
	]

Feel free to contribute some new regular expressions as build in!

Note: Trailing spaces are not ignored by default, because they are always evil!! If you still want to ignore them use the trailingspacesToIgnores option and set them to true.

.editorconfig option

It's possible to overwrite the default and given options by setting up a path to an external editorconfig file by using the editorconfig option. For a basic configuration of a .editorconfig file check out the EditorConfig Documentation.

	editorconfig: '.editorconfig'

The following .editorconfig values are supported:

• insert_final_newline will check if a newline is set
• indent_style will check the indentation
• indent_size will check the amount of spaces
• trim_trailing_whitespace will check for useless whitespaces

.rcconfig option

Load all settings from a RC configuration file. The configuration can be defined in ini or json format. When setting this option to true the configuration from a .lintspacesrc in the RC standards load paths will be taken.

	rcconfig: true

Define a custom path to a RC configuration file of your choice by setting the option to the desired path.

	rcconfig: 'path/to/.customrc'

Functions

An instance of the Lintspaces validator has the following methods

validate(path)

This function runs the check for a given file based on the validator settings.

• Parameter path is the path to the file as String.
• Throws an error when given path is not a valid path.
• Throws an error when given path is not a file.
• Returns undefined.

getProcessedFiles()

This returns the amount of processed through the validator.

• Returns the amount as Number.

getInvalidFiles()

This returns all invalid lines and messages from processed files.

• Returns each key in the returned Object represents a path of a processed invalid file. Each value is an other object containing the validation result. For more informations about the returned format see Usage.

getInvalidLines(path)

This returns all invalid lines and messages from the file of the given path. This is just a shorter version of getInvalidFiles()[path].

• Parameter path is the file path
• Returns each key in the returned Object represents a line from the file of the given path, each value an exeption message of the current line. For more informations about the returned format see Usage.

Contribution

Feel free to contribute. Please run all the tests and validation tasks befor you offer a pull request.

Tests & validation

Run grunt validate test to run the tests and validation tasks.

Readme

The readme chapters are located in the docs directory as Markdown. All Markdown files will be concatenated through a grunt task 'docs'. Call grunt docs or run it fully by call grunt to validate, test and update the README.md.

Note: Do not edit the README.md directly, it will be overwritten!

Contributors

• ck86
• itsananderson
• chandlerkent
• ben-eb via grunt-lintspaces
• yurks via grunt-lintspaces
• evanshortiss via lintspaces-cli

License

LICENSE (MIT)