All patches and comments are welcome. Please squash your changes to logical
commits before using git-format-patch and git-send-email to
patches@git.madduck.net.
If you'd read over the Git project's submission guidelines and adhered to them,
I'd be especially grateful.
1 ![Black Logo](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ambv/black/master/docs/_static/logo2-readme.png)
2 <h2 align="center">The Uncompromising Code Formatter</h2>
5 <a href="https://travis-ci.org/ambv/black"><img alt="Build Status" src="https://travis-ci.org/ambv/black.svg?branch=master"></a>
6 <a href="https://black.readthedocs.io/en/stable/?badge=stable"><img alt="Documentation Status" src="https://readthedocs.org/projects/black/badge/?version=stable"></a>
7 <a href="https://coveralls.io/github/ambv/black?branch=master"><img alt="Coverage Status" src="https://coveralls.io/repos/github/ambv/black/badge.svg?branch=master"></a>
8 <a href="https://github.com/ambv/black/blob/master/LICENSE"><img alt="License: MIT" src="https://black.readthedocs.io/en/stable/_static/license.svg"></a>
9 <a href="https://pypi.org/project/black/"><img alt="PyPI" src="https://black.readthedocs.io/en/stable/_static/pypi.svg"></a>
10 <a href="https://pepy.tech/project/black"><img alt="Downloads" src="https://pepy.tech/badge/black"></a>
11 <a href="https://github.com/ambv/black"><img alt="Code style: black" src="https://img.shields.io/badge/code%20style-black-000000.svg"></a>
14 > “Any color you like.”
17 *Black* is the uncompromising Python code formatter. By using it, you
18 agree to cede control over minutiae of hand-formatting. In return,
19 *Black* gives you speed, determinism, and freedom from `pycodestyle`
20 nagging about formatting. You will save time and mental energy for
21 more important matters.
23 Blackened code looks the same regardless of the project you're reading.
24 Formatting becomes transparent after a while and you can focus on the
27 *Black* makes code review faster by producing the smallest diffs
30 Try it out now using the [Black Playground](https://black.now.sh).
34 *Contents:* **[Installation and usage](#installation-and-usage)** |
35 **[Code style](#the-black-code-style)** |
36 **[pyproject.toml](#pyprojecttoml)** |
37 **[Editor integration](#editor-integration)** |
38 **[blackd](#blackd)** |
39 **[Version control integration](#version-control-integration)** |
40 **[Ignoring unmodified files](#ignoring-unmodified-files)** |
41 **[Testimonials](#testimonials)** |
42 **[Show your style](#show-your-style)** |
43 **[Contributing](#contributing-to-black)** |
44 **[Change Log](#change-log)** |
45 **[Authors](#authors)**
49 ## Installation and usage
53 *Black* can be installed by running `pip install black`. It requires
54 Python 3.6.0+ to run but you can reformat Python 2 code with it, too.
59 To get started right away with sensible defaults:
62 black {source_file_or_directory}
65 ### Command line options
67 *Black* doesn't provide many options. You can list them by running
71 black [OPTIONS] [SRC]...
74 -l, --line-length INTEGER How many characters per line to allow.
76 -t, --target-version [pypy35|cpy27|cpy33|cpy34|cpy35|cpy36|cpy37|cpy38]
77 Python versions that should be supported by
78 Black's output. [default: per-file auto-
80 --py36 Allow using Python 3.6-only syntax on all
81 input files. This will put trailing commas
82 in function signatures and calls also after
83 *args and **kwargs. [default: per-file
85 --pyi Format all input files like typing stubs
86 regardless of file extension (useful when
87 piping source on standard input).
88 -S, --skip-string-normalization
89 Don't normalize string quotes or prefixes.
90 --check Don't write the files back, just return the
91 status. Return code 0 means nothing would
92 change. Return code 1 means some files
93 would be reformatted. Return code 123 means
94 there was an internal error.
95 --diff Don't write the files back, just output a
96 diff for each file on stdout.
97 --fast / --safe If --fast given, skip temporary sanity
98 checks. [default: --safe]
99 --include TEXT A regular expression that matches files and
100 directories that should be included on
101 recursive searches. An empty value means
102 all files are included regardless of the
103 name. Use forward slashes for directories
104 on all platforms (Windows, too). Exclusions
105 are calculated first, inclusions later.
107 --exclude TEXT A regular expression that matches files and
108 directories that should be excluded on
109 recursive searches. An empty value means no
110 paths are excluded. Use forward slashes for
111 directories on all platforms (Windows, too).
112 Exclusions are calculated first, inclusions
113 later. [default: /(\.eggs|\.git|\.hg|\.mypy
114 _cache|\.nox|\.tox|\.venv|_build|buck-
116 -q, --quiet Don't emit non-error messages to stderr.
117 Errors are still emitted, silence those with
119 -v, --verbose Also emit messages to stderr about files
120 that were not changed or were ignored due to
122 --version Show the version and exit.
123 --config PATH Read configuration from PATH.
124 -h, --help Show this message and exit.
127 *Black* is a well-behaved Unix-style command-line tool:
128 * it does nothing if no sources are passed to it;
129 * it will read from standard input and write to standard output if `-`
130 is used as the filename;
131 * it only outputs messages to users on standard error;
132 * exits with code 0 unless an internal error occurred (or `--check` was
136 ### NOTE: This is a beta product
138 *Black* is already successfully used by several projects, small and big.
139 It also sports a decent test suite. However, it is still very new.
140 Things will probably be wonky for a while. This is made explicit by the
141 "Beta" trove classifier, as well as by the "b" in the version number.
142 What this means for you is that **until the formatter becomes stable,
143 you should expect some formatting to change in the future**. That being
144 said, no drastic stylistic changes are planned, mostly responses to bug
147 Also, as a temporary safety measure, *Black* will check that the
148 reformatted code still produces a valid AST that is equivalent to the
149 original. This slows it down. If you're feeling confident, use
153 ## The *Black* code style
155 *Black* reformats entire files in place. It is not configurable. It
156 doesn't take previous formatting into account. It doesn't reformat
157 blocks that start with `# fmt: off` and end with `# fmt: on`. `# fmt: on/off`
158 have to be on the same level of indentation. It also
159 recognizes [YAPF](https://github.com/google/yapf)'s block comments to
160 the same effect, as a courtesy for straddling code.
163 ### How *Black* wraps lines
165 *Black* ignores previous formatting and applies uniform horizontal
166 and vertical whitespace to your code. The rules for horizontal
167 whitespace can be summarized as: do whatever makes `pycodestyle` happy.
168 The coding style used by *Black* can be viewed as a strict subset of
171 As for vertical whitespace, *Black* tries to render one full expression
172 or simple statement per line. If this fits the allotted line length,
187 If not, *Black* will look at the contents of the first outer matching
188 brackets and put that in a separate indented line.
192 TracebackException.from_exception(exc, limit, lookup_lines, capture_locals)
196 TracebackException.from_exception(
197 exc, limit, lookup_lines, capture_locals
201 If that still doesn't fit the bill, it will decompose the internal
202 expression further using the same rule, indenting matching brackets
203 every time. If the contents of the matching brackets pair are
204 comma-separated (like an argument list, or a dict literal, and so on)
205 then *Black* will first try to keep them on the same line with the
206 matching brackets. If that doesn't work, it will put all of them in
211 def very_important_function(template: str, *variables, file: os.PathLike, debug: bool = False):
212 """Applies `variables` to the `template` and writes to `file`."""
213 with open(file, 'w') as f:
218 def very_important_function(
224 """Applies `variables` to the `template` and writes to `file`."""
225 with open(file, "w") as f:
229 You might have noticed that closing brackets are always dedented and
230 that a trailing comma is always added. Such formatting produces smaller
231 diffs; when you add or remove an element, it's always just one line.
232 Also, having the closing bracket dedented provides a clear delimiter
233 between two distinct sections of the code that otherwise share the same
234 indentation level (like the arguments list and the docstring in the
237 If a data structure literal (tuple, list, set, dict) or a line of "from"
238 imports cannot fit in the allotted length, it's always split into one
239 element per line. This minimizes diffs as well as enables readers of
240 code to find which commit introduced a particular entry. This also
241 makes *Black* compatible with [isort](https://pypi.org/p/isort/) with
242 the following configuration.
245 <summary>A compatible `.isort.cfg`</summary>
250 include_trailing_comma=True
256 The equivalent command line is:
258 $ isort --multi-line=3 --trailing-comma --force-grid-wrap=0 --use-parentheses --line-width=88 [ file.py ]
264 You probably noticed the peculiar default line length. *Black* defaults
265 to 88 characters per line, which happens to be 10% over 80. This number
266 was found to produce significantly shorter files than sticking with 80
267 (the most popular), or even 79 (used by the standard library). In
268 general, [90-ish seems like the wise choice](https://youtu.be/wf-BqAjZb8M?t=260).
270 If you're paid by the line of code you write, you can pass
271 `--line-length` with a lower number. *Black* will try to respect that.
272 However, sometimes it won't be able to without breaking other rules. In
273 those rare cases, auto-formatted code will exceed your allotted limit.
275 You can also increase it, but remember that people with sight disabilities
276 find it harder to work with line lengths exceeding 100 characters.
277 It also adversely affects side-by-side diff review on typical screen
278 resolutions. Long lines also make it harder to present code neatly
279 in documentation or talk slides.
281 If you're using Flake8, you can bump `max-line-length` to 88 and forget
282 about it. Alternatively, use [Bugbear](https://github.com/PyCQA/flake8-bugbear)'s
283 B950 warning instead of E501 and keep the max line length at 80 which
284 you are probably already using. You'd do it like this:
289 select = C,E,F,W,B,B950
293 You'll find *Black*'s own .flake8 config file is configured like this.
294 If you're curious about the reasoning behind B950,
295 [Bugbear's documentation](https://github.com/PyCQA/flake8-bugbear#opinionated-warnings)
296 explains it. The tl;dr is "it's like highway speed limits, we won't
297 bother you if you overdo it by a few km/h".
302 *Black* avoids spurious vertical whitespace. This is in the spirit of
303 PEP 8 which says that in-function vertical whitespace should only be
306 *Black* will allow single empty lines inside functions, and single and
307 double empty lines on module level left by the original editors, except
308 when they're within parenthesized expressions. Since such expressions
309 are always reformatted to fit minimal space, this whitespace is lost.
311 It will also insert proper spacing before and after function definitions.
312 It's one line before and after inner functions and two lines before and
313 after module-level functions and classes. *Black* will not put empty
314 lines between function/class definitions and standalone comments that
315 immediately precede the given function/class.
317 *Black* will enforce single empty lines between a class-level docstring
318 and the first following field or method. This conforms to
319 [PEP 257](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0257/#multi-line-docstrings).
321 *Black* won't insert empty lines after function docstrings unless that
322 empty line is required due to an inner function starting immediately
328 *Black* will add trailing commas to expressions that are split
329 by comma where each element is on its own line. This includes function
332 Unnecessary trailing commas are removed if an expression fits in one
333 line. This makes it 1% more likely that your line won't exceed the
334 allotted line length limit. Moreover, in this scenario, if you added
335 another argument to your call, you'd probably fit it in the same line
336 anyway. That doesn't make diffs any larger.
338 One exception to removing trailing commas is tuple expressions with
339 just one element. In this case *Black* won't touch the single trailing
340 comma as this would unexpectedly change the underlying data type. Note
341 that this is also the case when commas are used while indexing. This is
342 a tuple in disguise: ```numpy_array[3, ]```.
344 One exception to adding trailing commas is function signatures
345 containing `*`, `*args`, or `**kwargs`. In this case a trailing comma
346 is only safe to use on Python 3.6. *Black* will detect if your file is
347 already 3.6+ only and use trailing commas in this situation. If you
348 wonder how it knows, it looks for f-strings and existing use of trailing
349 commas in function signatures that have stars in them. In other words,
350 if you'd like a trailing comma in this situation and *Black* didn't
351 recognize it was safe to do so, put it there manually and *Black* will
357 *Black* prefers double quotes (`"` and `"""`) over single quotes (`'`
358 and `'''`). It will replace the latter with the former as long as it
359 does not result in more backslash escapes than before.
361 *Black* also standardizes string prefixes, making them always lowercase.
362 On top of that, if your code is already Python 3.6+ only or it's using
363 the `unicode_literals` future import, *Black* will remove `u` from the
364 string prefix as it is meaningless in those scenarios.
366 The main reason to standardize on a single form of quotes is aesthetics.
367 Having one kind of quotes everywhere reduces reader distraction.
368 It will also enable a future version of *Black* to merge consecutive
369 string literals that ended up on the same line (see
370 [#26](https://github.com/ambv/black/issues/26) for details).
372 Why settle on double quotes? They anticipate apostrophes in English
373 text. They match the docstring standard described in [PEP 257](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0257/#what-is-a-docstring).
374 An empty string in double quotes (`""`) is impossible to confuse with
375 a one double-quote regardless of fonts and syntax highlighting used.
376 On top of this, double quotes for strings are consistent with C which
377 Python interacts a lot with.
379 On certain keyboard layouts like US English, typing single quotes is
380 a bit easier than double quotes. The latter requires use of the Shift
381 key. My recommendation here is to keep using whatever is faster to type
382 and let *Black* handle the transformation.
384 If you are adopting *Black* in a large project with pre-existing string
385 conventions (like the popular ["single quotes for data, double quotes for
386 human-readable strings"](https://stackoverflow.com/a/56190)), you can
387 pass `--skip-string-normalization` on the command line. This is meant as
388 an adoption helper, avoid using this for new projects.
392 *Black* standardizes most numeric literals to use lowercase letters for the
393 syntactic parts and uppercase letters for the digits themselves: `0xAB`
394 instead of `0XAB` and `1e10` instead of `1E10`. Python 2 long literals are
395 styled as `2L` instead of `2l` to avoid confusion between `l` and `1`.
398 ### Line breaks & binary operators
400 *Black* will break a line before a binary operator when splitting a block
401 of code over multiple lines. This is so that *Black* is compliant with the
402 recent changes in the [PEP 8](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/#should-a-line-break-before-or-after-a-binary-operator)
403 style guide, which emphasizes that this approach improves readability.
405 This behaviour may raise ``W503 line break before binary operator`` warnings in
406 style guide enforcement tools like Flake8. Since ``W503`` is not PEP 8 compliant,
407 you should tell Flake8 to ignore these warnings.
412 PEP 8 [recommends](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/#whitespace-in-expressions-and-statements)
413 to treat ``:`` in slices as a binary operator with the lowest priority, and to
414 leave an equal amount of space on either side, except if a parameter is omitted
415 (e.g. ``ham[1 + 1 :]``). It also states that for extended slices, both ``:``
416 operators have to have the same amount of spacing, except if a parameter is
417 omitted (``ham[1 + 1 ::]``). *Black* enforces these rules consistently.
419 This behaviour may raise ``E203 whitespace before ':'`` warnings in style guide
420 enforcement tools like Flake8. Since ``E203`` is not PEP 8 compliant, you should
421 tell Flake8 to ignore these warnings.
426 Some parentheses are optional in the Python grammar. Any expression can
427 be wrapped in a pair of parentheses to form an atom. There are a few
432 - `for (...) in (...):`
433 - `assert (...), (...)`
434 - `from X import (...)`
437 - `target: type = (...)`
438 - `some, *un, packing = (...)`
439 - `augmented += (...)`
441 In those cases, parentheses are removed when the entire statement fits
442 in one line, or if the inner expression doesn't have any delimiters to
443 further split on. If there is only a single delimiter and the expression
444 starts or ends with a bracket, the parenthesis can also be successfully
445 omitted since the existing bracket pair will organize the expression
446 neatly anyway. Otherwise, the parentheses are added.
448 Please note that *Black* does not add or remove any additional nested
449 parentheses that you might want to have for clarity or further
450 code organization. For example those parentheses are not going to be
453 return not (this or that)
454 decision = (maybe.this() and values > 0) or (maybe.that() and values < 0)
460 Some popular APIs, like ORMs, use call chaining. This API style is known
461 as a [fluent interface](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluent_interface).
462 *Black* formats those by treating dots that follow a call or an indexing
463 operation like a very low priority delimiter. It's easier to show the
464 behavior than to explain it. Look at the example:
466 def example(session):
468 session.query(models.Customer.id)
470 models.Customer.account_id == account_id,
471 models.Customer.email == email_address,
473 .order_by(models.Customer.id.asc())
479 ### Typing stub files
481 PEP 484 describes the syntax for type hints in Python. One of the
482 use cases for typing is providing type annotations for modules which
483 cannot contain them directly (they might be written in C, or they might
484 be third-party, or their implementation may be overly dynamic, and so on).
486 To solve this, [stub files with the `.pyi` file
487 extension](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0484/#stub-files) can be
488 used to describe typing information for an external module. Those stub
489 files omit the implementation of classes and functions they
490 describe, instead they only contain the structure of the file (listing
491 globals, functions, and classes with their members). The recommended
492 code style for those files is more terse than PEP 8:
494 * prefer `...` on the same line as the class/function signature;
495 * avoid vertical whitespace between consecutive module-level functions,
496 names, or methods and fields within a single class;
497 * use a single blank line between top-level class definitions, or none
498 if the classes are very small.
500 *Black* enforces the above rules. There are additional guidelines for
501 formatting `.pyi` file that are not enforced yet but might be in
502 a future version of the formatter:
504 * all function bodies should be empty (contain `...` instead of the body);
505 * do not use docstrings;
506 * prefer `...` over `pass`;
507 * for arguments with a default, use `...` instead of the actual default;
508 * avoid using string literals in type annotations, stub files support
509 forward references natively (like Python 3.7 code with `from __future__
510 import annotations`);
511 * use variable annotations instead of type comments, even for stubs that
512 target older versions of Python;
513 * for arguments that default to `None`, use `Optional[]` explicitly;
514 * use `float` instead of `Union[int, float]`.
519 *Black* is able to read project-specific default values for its
520 command line options from a `pyproject.toml` file. This is
521 especially useful for specifying custom `--include` and `--exclude`
522 patterns for your project.
524 **Pro-tip**: If you're asking yourself "Do I need to configure anything?"
525 the answer is "No". *Black* is all about sensible defaults.
528 ### What on Earth is a `pyproject.toml` file?
530 [PEP 518](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0518/) defines
531 `pyproject.toml` as a configuration file to store build system
532 requirements for Python projects. With the help of tools
533 like [Poetry](https://poetry.eustace.io/) or
534 [Flit](https://flit.readthedocs.io/en/latest/) it can fully replace the
535 need for `setup.py` and `setup.cfg` files.
538 ### Where *Black* looks for the file
540 By default *Black* looks for `pyproject.toml` starting from the common
541 base directory of all files and directories passed on the command line.
542 If it's not there, it looks in parent directories. It stops looking
543 when it finds the file, or a `.git` directory, or a `.hg` directory,
544 or the root of the file system, whichever comes first.
546 If you're formatting standard input, *Black* will look for configuration
547 starting from the current working directory.
549 You can also explicitly specify the path to a particular file that you
550 want with `--config`. In this situation *Black* will not look for any
553 If you're running with `--verbose`, you will see a blue message if
554 a file was found and used.
556 Please note `blackd` will not use `pyproject.toml` configuration.
559 ### Configuration format
561 As the file extension suggests, `pyproject.toml` is a [TOML](https://github.com/toml-lang/toml) file. It contains separate
562 sections for different tools. *Black* is using the `[tool.black]`
563 section. The option keys are the same as long names of options on
566 Note that you have to use single-quoted strings in TOML for regular
567 expressions. It's the equivalent of r-strings in Python. Multiline
568 strings are treated as verbose regular expressions by Black. Use `[ ]`
569 to denote a significant space character.
572 <summary>Example `pyproject.toml`</summary>
583 \.eggs # exclude a few common directories in the
584 | \.git # root of the project
594 | foo.py # also separately exclude a file named foo.py in
595 # the root of the project
604 Command-line options have defaults that you can see in `--help`.
605 A `pyproject.toml` can override those defaults. Finally, options
606 provided by the user on the command line override both.
608 *Black* will only ever use one `pyproject.toml` file during an entire
609 run. It doesn't look for multiple files, and doesn't compose
610 configuration from different levels of the file hierarchy.
613 ## Editor integration
617 Use [proofit404/blacken](https://github.com/proofit404/blacken).
628 2. Locate your `black` installation folder.
630 On macOS / Linux / BSD:
634 /usr/local/bin/black # possible location
641 %LocalAppData%\Programs\Python\Python36-32\Scripts\black.exe # possible location
644 3. Open External tools in PyCharm with `File -> Settings -> Tools -> External Tools`.
646 4. Click the + icon to add a new external tool with the following values:
648 - Description: Black is the uncompromising Python code formatter.
649 - Program: <install_location_from_step_2>
650 - Arguments: `$FilePath$`
652 5. Format the currently opened file by selecting `Tools -> External Tools -> black`.
653 - Alternatively, you can set a keyboard shortcut by navigating to `Preferences -> Keymap -> External Tools -> External Tools - Black`.
655 6. Optionally, run Black on every file save:
657 1. Make sure you have the [File Watcher](https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/7177-file-watchers) plugin installed.
658 2. Go to `Preferences -> Tools -> File Watchers` and click `+` to add a new watcher:
661 - Scope: Project Files
662 - Program: <install_location_from_step_2>
663 - Arguments: `$FilePath$`
664 - Output paths to refresh: `$FilePathRelativeToProjectRoot$`
665 - Working directory: `$ProjectFileDir$`
666 - Uncheck "Auto-save edited files to trigger the watcher"
670 Commands and shortcuts:
672 * `:Black` to format the entire file (ranges not supported);
673 * `:BlackUpgrade` to upgrade *Black* inside the virtualenv;
674 * `:BlackVersion` to get the current version of *Black* inside the
678 * `g:black_fast` (defaults to `0`)
679 * `g:black_linelength` (defaults to `88`)
680 * `g:black_skip_string_normalization` (defaults to `0`)
681 * `g:black_virtualenv` (defaults to `~/.vim/black`)
683 To install with [vim-plug](https://github.com/junegunn/vim-plug):
689 or with [Vundle](https://github.com/VundleVim/Vundle.vim):
695 or you can copy the plugin from [plugin/black.vim](https://github.com/ambv/black/tree/master/plugin/black.vim).
696 Let me know if this requires any changes to work with Vim 8's builtin
697 `packadd`, or Pathogen, and so on.
699 This plugin **requires Vim 7.0+ built with Python 3.6+ support**. It
700 needs Python 3.6 to be able to run *Black* inside the Vim process which
701 is much faster than calling an external command.
703 On first run, the plugin creates its own virtualenv using the right
704 Python version and automatically installs *Black*. You can upgrade it later
705 by calling `:BlackUpgrade` and restarting Vim.
707 If you need to do anything special to make your virtualenv work and
708 install *Black* (for example you want to run a version from master),
709 create a virtualenv manually and point `g:black_virtualenv` to it.
710 The plugin will use it.
712 To run *Black* on save, add the following line to `.vimrc` or `init.vim`:
715 autocmd BufWritePre *.py execute ':Black'
718 **How to get Vim with Python 3.6?**
719 On Ubuntu 17.10 Vim comes with Python 3.6 by default.
720 On macOS with Homebrew run: `brew install vim --with-python3`.
721 When building Vim from source, use:
722 `./configure --enable-python3interp=yes`. There's many guides online how
726 ### Visual Studio Code
728 Use the [Python extension](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-python.python)
729 ([instructions](https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/python/editing#_formatting)).
734 Use [sublack plugin](https://github.com/jgirardet/sublack).
737 ### Jupyter Notebook Magic
739 Use [blackcellmagic](https://github.com/csurfer/blackcellmagic).
742 ### Python Language Server
744 If your editor supports the [Language Server Protocol](https://langserver.org/)
745 (Atom, Sublime Text, Visual Studio Code and many more), you can use
746 the [Python Language Server](https://github.com/palantir/python-language-server) with the
747 [pyls-black](https://github.com/rupert/pyls-black) plugin.
752 Use [python-black](https://atom.io/packages/python-black).
757 Other editors will require external contributions.
759 Patches welcome! ✨ 🍰 ✨
761 Any tool that can pipe code through *Black* using its stdio mode (just
762 [use `-` as the file name](https://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/special-chars.html#DASHREF2)).
763 The formatted code will be returned on stdout (unless `--check` was
764 passed). *Black* will still emit messages on stderr but that shouldn't
765 affect your use case.
767 This can be used for example with PyCharm's [File Watchers](https://www.jetbrains.com/help/pycharm/file-watchers.html).
771 `blackd` is a small HTTP server that exposes *Black*'s functionality over
772 a simple protocol. The main benefit of using it is to avoid paying the
773 cost of starting up a new *Black* process every time you want to blacken
778 `blackd` is not packaged alongside *Black* by default because it has additional
779 dependencies. You will need to do `pip install black[d]` to install it.
781 You can start the server on the default port, binding only to the local interface
782 by running `blackd`. You will see a single line mentioning the server's version,
783 and the host and port it's listening on. `blackd` will then print an access log
784 similar to most web servers on standard output, merged with any exception traces
785 caused by invalid formatting requests.
787 `blackd` provides even less options than *Black*. You can see them by running
791 Usage: blackd [OPTIONS]
794 --bind-host TEXT Address to bind the server to.
795 --bind-port INTEGER Port to listen on
796 --version Show the version and exit.
797 -h, --help Show this message and exit.
802 `blackd` only accepts `POST` requests at the `/` path. The body of the request
803 should contain the python source code to be formatted, encoded
804 according to the `charset` field in the `Content-Type` request header. If no
805 `charset` is specified, `blackd` assumes `UTF-8`.
807 There are a few HTTP headers that control how the source is formatted. These
808 correspond to command line flags for *Black*. There is one exception to this:
809 `X-Protocol-Version` which if present, should have the value `1`, otherwise the
810 request is rejected with `HTTP 501` (Not Implemented).
812 The headers controlling how code is formatted are:
814 - `X-Line-Length`: corresponds to the `--line-length` command line flag.
815 - `X-Skip-String-Normalization`: corresponds to the `--skip-string-normalization`
816 command line flag. If present and its value is not the empty string, no string
817 normalization will be performed.
818 - `X-Fast-Or-Safe`: if set to `fast`, `blackd` will act as *Black* does when
819 passed the `--fast` command line flag.
820 - `X-Python-Variant`: if set to `pyi`, `blackd` will act as *Black* does when
821 passed the `--pyi` command line flag. Otherwise, its value must correspond to
822 a Python version or a set of comma-separated Python versions, optionally
823 prefixed with `cpy` or `pypy`. For example, to request code that is compatible
824 with PyPy 3.5 and CPython 3.5, set the header to `pypy3.5,cpy3.5`.
826 If any of these headers are set to invalid values, `blackd` returns a `HTTP 400`
827 error response, mentioning the name of the problematic header in the message body.
829 Apart from the above, `blackd` can produce the following response codes:
831 - `HTTP 204`: If the input is already well-formatted. The response body is
833 - `HTTP 200`: If formatting was needed on the input. The response body
834 contains the blackened Python code, and the `Content-Type` header is set
836 - `HTTP 400`: If the input contains a syntax error. Details of the error are
837 returned in the response body.
838 - `HTTP 500`: If there was any kind of error while trying to format the input.
839 The response body contains a textual representation of the error.
841 ## Version control integration
843 Use [pre-commit](https://pre-commit.com/). Once you [have it
844 installed](https://pre-commit.com/#install), add this to the
845 `.pre-commit-config.yaml` in your repository:
848 - repo: https://github.com/ambv/black
852 language_version: python3.6
854 Then run `pre-commit install` and you're ready to go.
856 Avoid using `args` in the hook. Instead, store necessary configuration
857 in `pyproject.toml` so that editors and command-line usage of Black all
858 behave consistently for your project. See *Black*'s own `pyproject.toml`
861 If you're already using Python 3.7, switch the `language_version`
862 accordingly. Finally, `stable` is a tag that is pinned to the latest
863 release on PyPI. If you'd rather run on master, this is also an option.
866 ## Ignoring unmodified files
868 *Black* remembers files it has already formatted, unless the `--diff` flag is used or
869 code is passed via standard input. This information is stored per-user. The exact
870 location of the file depends on the *Black* version and the system on which *Black*
871 is run. The file is non-portable. The standard location on common operating systems
874 * Windows: `C:\\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\black\black\Cache\<version>\cache.<line-length>.<file-mode>.pickle`
875 * macOS: `/Users/<username>/Library/Caches/black/<version>/cache.<line-length>.<file-mode>.pickle`
876 * Linux: `/home/<username>/.cache/black/<version>/cache.<line-length>.<file-mode>.pickle`
878 `file-mode` is an int flag that determines whether the file was formatted as 3.6+ only,
879 as .pyi, and whether string normalization was omitted.
884 **Dusty Phillips**, [writer](https://smile.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=dusty+phillips):
886 > *Black* is opinionated so you don't have to be.
888 **Hynek Schlawack**, [creator of `attrs`](https://www.attrs.org/), core
889 developer of Twisted and CPython:
891 > An auto-formatter that doesn't suck is all I want for Xmas!
893 **Carl Meyer**, [Django](https://www.djangoproject.com/) core developer:
895 > At least the name is good.
897 **Kenneth Reitz**, creator of [`requests`](http://python-requests.org/)
898 and [`pipenv`](https://docs.pipenv.org/):
900 > This vastly improves the formatting of our code. Thanks a ton!
905 Use the badge in your project's README.md:
908 [![Code style: black](https://img.shields.io/badge/code%20style-black-000000.svg)](https://github.com/ambv/black)
911 Using the badge in README.rst:
913 .. image:: https://img.shields.io/badge/code%20style-black-000000.svg
914 :target: https://github.com/ambv/black
917 Looks like this: [![Code style: black](https://img.shields.io/badge/code%20style-black-000000.svg)](https://github.com/ambv/black)
925 ## Contributing to *Black*
927 In terms of inspiration, *Black* is about as configurable as *gofmt*.
930 Bug reports and fixes are always welcome! However, before you suggest a
931 new feature or configuration knob, ask yourself why you want it. If it
932 enables better integration with some workflow, fixes an inconsistency,
933 speeds things up, and so on - go for it! On the other hand, if your
934 answer is "because I don't like a particular formatting" then you're not
935 ready to embrace *Black* yet. Such changes are unlikely to get accepted.
936 You can still try but prepare to be disappointed.
938 More details can be found in [CONTRIBUTING](CONTRIBUTING.md).
945 * *Black* no longer normalizes numeric literals to include `_` separators.
947 * new option `--target-version` to control which Python versions
948 *Black*-formatted code should target
952 * numeric literals are now formatted by *Black* (#452, #461, #464, #469):
954 * numeric literals are normalized to include `_` separators on Python 3.6+ code
956 * added `--skip-numeric-underscore-normalization` to disable the above behavior and
957 leave numeric underscores as they were in the input
959 * code with `_` in numeric literals is recognized as Python 3.6+
961 * most letters in numeric literals are lowercased (e.g., in `1e10`, `0x01`)
963 * hexadecimal digits are always uppercased (e.g. `0xBADC0DE`)
965 * added `blackd`, see [its documentation](#blackd) for more info (#349)
967 * adjacent string literals are now correctly split into multiple lines (#463)
969 * trailing comma is now added to single imports that don't fit on a line (#250)
971 * cache is now populated when `--check` is successful for a file which speeds up
972 consecutive checks of properly formatted unmodified files (#448)
974 * whitespace at the beginning of the file is now removed (#399)
976 * fixed mangling [pweave](http://mpastell.com/pweave/) and
977 [Spyder IDE](https://pythonhosted.org/spyder/) special comments (#532)
979 * fixed unstable formatting when unpacking big tuples (#267)
981 * fixed parsing of `__future__` imports with renames (#389)
983 * fixed scope of `# fmt: off` when directly preceding `yield` and other nodes (#385)
985 * fixed formatting of lambda expressions with default arguments (#468)
987 * fixed ``async for`` statements: *Black* no longer breaks them into separate
990 * note: the Vim plugin stopped registering ``,=`` as a default chord as it turned out
991 to be a bad idea (#415)
996 * hotfix: don't freeze when multiple comments directly precede `# fmt: off` (#371)
1001 * typing stub files (`.pyi`) now have blank lines added after constants (#340)
1003 * `# fmt: off` and `# fmt: on` are now much more dependable:
1005 * they now work also within bracket pairs (#329)
1007 * they now correctly work across function/class boundaries (#335)
1009 * they now work when an indentation block starts with empty lines or misaligned
1012 * made Click not fail on invalid environments; note that Click is right but the
1013 likelihood we'll need to access non-ASCII file paths when dealing with Python source
1016 * fixed improper formatting of f-strings with quotes inside interpolated
1019 * fixed unnecessary slowdown when long list literals where found in a file
1021 * fixed unnecessary slowdown on AST nodes with very many siblings
1023 * fixed cannibalizing backslashes during string normalization
1025 * fixed a crash due to symbolic links pointing outside of the project directory (#338)
1030 * added `--config` (#65)
1032 * added `-h` equivalent to `--help` (#316)
1034 * fixed improper unmodified file caching when `-S` was used
1036 * fixed extra space in string unpacking (#305)
1038 * fixed formatting of empty triple quoted strings (#313)
1040 * fixed unnecessary slowdown in comment placement calculation on lines without
1046 * hotfix: don't output human-facing information on stdout (#299)
1048 * hotfix: don't output cake emoji on non-zero return code (#300)
1053 * added `--include` and `--exclude` (#270)
1055 * added `--skip-string-normalization` (#118)
1057 * added `--verbose` (#283)
1059 * the header output in `--diff` now actually conforms to the unified diff spec
1061 * fixed long trivial assignments being wrapped in unnecessary parentheses (#273)
1063 * fixed unnecessary parentheses when a line contained multiline strings (#232)
1065 * fixed stdin handling not working correctly if an old version of Click was
1068 * *Black* now preserves line endings when formatting a file in place (#258)
1073 * added `--pyi` (#249)
1075 * added `--py36` (#249)
1077 * Python grammar pickle caches are stored with the formatting caches, making
1078 *Black* work in environments where site-packages is not user-writable (#192)
1080 * *Black* now enforces a PEP 257 empty line after a class-level docstring
1081 (and/or fields) and the first method
1083 * fixed invalid code produced when standalone comments were present in a trailer
1084 that was omitted from line splitting on a large expression (#237)
1086 * fixed optional parentheses being removed within `# fmt: off` sections (#224)
1088 * fixed invalid code produced when stars in very long imports were incorrectly
1089 wrapped in optional parentheses (#234)
1091 * fixed unstable formatting when inline comments were moved around in
1092 a trailer that was omitted from line splitting on a large expression
1095 * fixed extra empty line between a class declaration and the first
1096 method if no class docstring or fields are present (#219)
1098 * fixed extra empty line between a function signature and an inner
1099 function or inner class (#196)
1104 * call chains are now formatted according to the
1105 [fluent interfaces](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluent_interface)
1108 * data structure literals (tuples, lists, dictionaries, and sets) are
1109 now also always exploded like imports when they don't fit in a single
1112 * slices are now formatted according to PEP 8 (#178)
1114 * parentheses are now also managed automatically on the right-hand side
1115 of assignments and return statements (#140)
1117 * math operators now use their respective priorities for delimiting multiline
1120 * optional parentheses are now omitted on expressions that start or end
1121 with a bracket and only contain a single operator (#177)
1123 * empty parentheses in a class definition are now removed (#145, #180)
1125 * string prefixes are now standardized to lowercase and `u` is removed
1126 on Python 3.6+ only code and Python 2.7+ code with the `unicode_literals`
1127 future import (#188, #198, #199)
1129 * typing stub files (`.pyi`) are now formatted in a style that is consistent
1130 with PEP 484 (#207, #210)
1132 * progress when reformatting many files is now reported incrementally
1134 * fixed trailers (content with brackets) being unnecessarily exploded
1135 into their own lines after a dedented closing bracket (#119)
1137 * fixed an invalid trailing comma sometimes left in imports (#185)
1139 * fixed non-deterministic formatting when multiple pairs of removable parentheses
1142 * fixed multiline strings being unnecessarily wrapped in optional
1143 parentheses in long assignments (#215)
1145 * fixed not splitting long from-imports with only a single name
1147 * fixed Python 3.6+ file discovery by also looking at function calls with
1148 unpacking. This fixed non-deterministic formatting if trailing commas
1149 where used both in function signatures with stars and function calls
1150 with stars but the former would be reformatted to a single line.
1152 * fixed crash on dealing with optional parentheses (#193)
1154 * fixed "is", "is not", "in", and "not in" not considered operators for
1157 * fixed crash when dead symlinks where encountered
1162 * don't populate the cache on `--check` (#175)
1167 * added a "cache"; files already reformatted that haven't changed on disk
1168 won't be reformatted again (#109)
1170 * `--check` and `--diff` are no longer mutually exclusive (#149)
1172 * generalized star expression handling, including double stars; this
1173 fixes multiplication making expressions "unsafe" for trailing commas (#132)
1175 * *Black* no longer enforces putting empty lines behind control flow statements
1178 * *Black* now splits imports like "Mode 3 + trailing comma" of isort (#127)
1180 * fixed comment indentation when a standalone comment closes a block (#16, #32)
1182 * fixed standalone comments receiving extra empty lines if immediately preceding
1183 a class, def, or decorator (#56, #154)
1185 * fixed `--diff` not showing entire path (#130)
1187 * fixed parsing of complex expressions after star and double stars in
1190 * fixed invalid splitting on comma in lambda arguments (#133)
1192 * fixed missing splits of ternary expressions (#141)
1197 * fixed parsing of unaligned standalone comments (#99, #112)
1199 * fixed placement of dictionary unpacking inside dictionary literals (#111)
1201 * Vim plugin now works on Windows, too
1203 * fixed unstable formatting when encountering unnecessarily escaped quotes
1209 * added `--quiet` (#78)
1211 * added automatic parentheses management (#4)
1213 * added [pre-commit](https://pre-commit.com) integration (#103, #104)
1215 * fixed reporting on `--check` with multiple files (#101, #102)
1217 * fixed removing backslash escapes from raw strings (#100, #105)
1222 * added `--diff` (#87)
1224 * add line breaks before all delimiters, except in cases like commas, to
1225 better comply with PEP 8 (#73)
1227 * standardize string literals to use double quotes (almost) everywhere
1230 * fixed handling of standalone comments within nested bracketed
1231 expressions; *Black* will no longer produce super long lines or put all
1232 standalone comments at the end of the expression (#22)
1234 * fixed 18.3a4 regression: don't crash and burn on empty lines with
1235 trailing whitespace (#80)
1237 * fixed 18.3a4 regression: `# yapf: disable` usage as trailing comment
1238 would cause *Black* to not emit the rest of the file (#95)
1240 * when CTRL+C is pressed while formatting many files, *Black* no longer
1241 freaks out with a flurry of asyncio-related exceptions
1243 * only allow up to two empty lines on module level and only single empty
1244 lines within functions (#74)
1249 * `# fmt: off` and `# fmt: on` are implemented (#5)
1251 * automatic detection of deprecated Python 2 forms of print statements
1252 and exec statements in the formatted file (#49)
1254 * use proper spaces for complex expressions in default values of typed
1255 function arguments (#60)
1257 * only return exit code 1 when --check is used (#50)
1259 * don't remove single trailing commas from square bracket indexing
1262 * don't omit whitespace if the previous factor leaf wasn't a math
1265 * omit extra space in kwarg unpacking if it's the first argument (#46)
1267 * omit extra space in [Sphinx auto-attribute comments](http://www.sphinx-doc.org/en/stable/ext/autodoc.html#directive-autoattribute)
1273 * don't remove single empty lines outside of bracketed expressions
1276 * added ability to pipe formatting from stdin to stdin (#25)
1278 * restored ability to format code with legacy usage of `async` as
1281 * even better handling of numpy-style array indexing (#33, again)
1286 * changed positioning of binary operators to occur at beginning of lines
1287 instead of at the end, following [a recent change to PEP 8](https://github.com/python/peps/commit/c59c4376ad233a62ca4b3a6060c81368bd21e85b)
1290 * ignore empty bracket pairs while splitting. This avoids very weirdly
1291 looking formattings (#34, #35)
1293 * remove a trailing comma if there is a single argument to a call
1295 * if top level functions were separated by a comment, don't put four
1296 empty lines after the upper function
1298 * fixed unstable formatting of newlines with imports
1300 * fixed unintentional folding of post scriptum standalone comments
1301 into last statement if it was a simple statement (#18, #28)
1303 * fixed missing space in numpy-style array indexing (#33)
1305 * fixed spurious space after star-based unary expressions (#31)
1312 * only put trailing commas in function signatures and calls if it's
1313 safe to do so. If the file is Python 3.6+ it's always safe, otherwise
1314 only safe if there are no `*args` or `**kwargs` used in the signature
1317 * fixed invalid spacing of dots in relative imports (#6, #13)
1319 * fixed invalid splitting after comma on unpacked variables in for-loops
1322 * fixed spurious space in parenthesized set expressions (#7)
1324 * fixed spurious space after opening parentheses and in default
1325 arguments (#14, #17)
1327 * fixed spurious space after unary operators when the operand was
1328 a complex expression (#15)
1333 * first published version, Happy 🍰 Day 2018!
1337 * date-versioned (see: https://calver.org/)
1342 Glued together by [Łukasz Langa](mailto:lukasz@langa.pl).
1344 Maintained with [Carol Willing](mailto:carolcode@willingconsulting.com),
1345 [Carl Meyer](mailto:carl@oddbird.net),
1346 [Jelle Zijlstra](mailto:jelle.zijlstra@gmail.com),
1347 [Mika Naylor](mailto:mail@autophagy.io), and
1348 [Zsolt Dollenstein](mailto:zsol.zsol@gmail.com).
1350 Multiple contributions by:
1351 * [Anthony Sottile](mailto:asottile@umich.edu)
1352 * [Artem Malyshev](mailto:proofit404@gmail.com)
1353 * [Christian Heimes](mailto:christian@python.org)
1354 * [Daniel M. Capella](mailto:polycitizen@gmail.com)
1355 * [Eli Treuherz](mailto:eli@treuherz.com)
1357 * [Ivan Katanić](mailto:ivan.katanic@gmail.com)
1358 * [Jonas Obrist](mailto:ojiidotch@gmail.com)
1359 * [Luka Sterbic](mailto:luka.sterbic@gmail.com)
1360 * [Miguel Gaiowski](mailto:miggaiowski@gmail.com)
1361 * [Miroslav Shubernetskiy](mailto:miroslav@miki725.com)
1362 * [Neraste](mailto:neraste.herr10@gmail.com)
1363 * [Osaetin Daniel](mailto:osaetindaniel@gmail.com)
1364 * [Peter Bengtsson](mailto:mail@peterbe.com)
1365 * [Stavros Korokithakis](mailto:hi@stavros.io)
1366 * [Sunil Kapil](mailto:snlkapil@gmail.com)
1367 * [Vishwas B Sharma](mailto:sharma.vishwas88@gmail.com)
1368 * [Chuck Wooters](mailto:chuck.wooters@microsoft.com)