Perltidy is a very valuable tool when it comes to formatting Perl source code in a common way. This is especially helpful if you follow the recommended Perl Best Practices (PBP) style guide.

History

Version	Date	Notes
0.1.5	2022-05-23	Fix perltidyrc download link
0.1.4	2022-05-22	Changes->History, change comments, improve ,pt
0.1.3	2020-05-12	Add front matter
0.1.2	2016-06-22	Improve vim section
0.1.1	2009-03-06	Adapt changes from PBP
0.1.0	2009-02-05	Initial release

Installation

aptitude install perltidy

Configuration

Perltidy uses its configuration file at: ~/.perltidyrc

Example Configuration Inspired by Perl Best Practice

### PBP perltidy version 0.1 (2009-03-06)

### Max line width is 78 cols
-l=78

### Indent level is 4 cols
-i=4

### Continuation indent is 4 cols
-ci=4

### Output to STDOUT
-st

### ckuelker 2009-02-05: if you switch this on in vim it will print error
### messages directly in your code! Happy clean up!!
### Errors to STDERR
  #-se

### Maximal vertical tightness
### switch this on (set this to 2) seems to be make the layout too tight
### switch this on might be a mistake in PBP (German edition) since PBP
### recommends K&R style, see chapter 2
### ON:
###            my $dog = CipUX::Dog->new(
###                {   dog_hr       => $dog_hr,
###                    object       => $object,
###                    overwrite_hr => $overwrite_hr,
###                }
###            );
### OFF:
###            my $dog = CipUX::Dog->new(
###                {
###                    dog_hr       => $dog_hr,
###                    object       => $object,
###                    overwrite_hr => $overwrite_hr,
###                }
###            );
  #-vt=2

### No extra indentation for closing brackets
-cti=0

### Medium parenthesis tightness
-pt=1

### Medium brace tightness
-bt=1

### Medium square bracket tightness
-sbt=1

### Medium block brace tightness
-bbt=1

### No space before semicolons
-nsfs

### Don't outdent long quoted strings
-nolq

### Break before all operators
-wbb="% + - * / x != == >= <= =~ !~ < > | & >= < = **= += *= &= <<= &&= -= /= \
|= >>= ||= .= %= ^= x="

• Download local by browsers and PDF in browser tabs: perltidyrc
• View via https://github.com by PDF viewers: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ckuelker/quick-guide-en-us/master/Dev/Perl/Style-Guide/perltidyrc

Activation In Vim

To activate perltidy cleanup in vim you can add this to ~/.vimrc

map ,pt <Esc>:%!perltidy <CR>

When pressing ‘,pt’ fast after each other your Perl code gets reformatted if perltidy is installed in your path. Otherwise you code gets removed.

In case unintentional removing of content is not desired the above mapping can be made safer by adding a vim function.

function! s:Perltidy() abort
  if executable("perltidy")
    :%!perltidy
    echo "Executed perltidy"
  else
    echo "- FAIL: Could not find command 'perltidy'"
  endif
endfunction
map ,pt :call <sid>Perltidy()<CR>