proposal: cmd/gofmt: don't rewrite into smart quotes

[robpike]

Proposal Details

This happened to me yesterday:

 % gofmt char.go > x
 % diff char.go x
 82c82
 < // Raw quotes are Go-like and bounded by ``.
 ---
 > // Raw quotes are Go-like and bounded by “.

In the font I was using, those lines were pixel-identical. I was very confused and it took me a while to figure out what was going on.

I was surprised to see smart quotes placed in my source code without my explicitly typing them. I see that this came about as part of proposal #51082. The design doc mentions this change, but without explicit justification.

I have several objections to this. One is the mystery of my experience, but leave that aside.

This change means that gofmt will now rewrite my comments to include things I cannot easily type. It will of course do rewriting in general, but this is the first time I can think of that the resulting text contains characters (other than spacing changes) that are not in the original, let alone ones that are not on the keyboard.

Also, these are programmatic characters. If the comment contains an example that uses these characters, as mine did, the snippet is no longer valid.

It also means that If I choose to search for, say

``

because I know it's there, it won't be there any more.

I have a suggestion. I'd like to see this particular detail rolled back completely, but given a certain love for fancy formatting by some people, I suggest smart quotes be added only for go doc, and never for go fmt.

In summary: Do not put smart quotes in my Go source files behind my back.

[griesemer]

I am supportive of this. gofmt should only be in the business of arranging white space.

(If people want other automatic changes, they can use a different tool. As an aside, the fact that gofmt allows simplifications and rewrites via the -s and -r option is historical. We'd use a separate tool if we were doing it again.)

[seankhliao]

I think this is the accepted but as yet unimplemented proposal #54312

[gopherbot]

Change https://go.dev/cl/732420 mentions this issue: go/doc/comment: never rewrite into smart quotes

[gabyhelp]

Related Issues

• cmd/gofmt: smart quotes are not #61365 (closed)
• go/doc: reconsider comment rewrites of `''` to `”` #54312
• go/format: unable to write '' in a comment as it's unconditionally transformed to a ” "smart quote" #56380 (closed)

Related Discussions

• use gofmt to replace single quote with double quote

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[griesemer]

@seankhliao Thanks for the CL. We still need to first approve this proposal. We also need to
reconcile it with #54312 which gets us 90% there while preserving some of the rewriting (see also @cespare's comment).

I am still supportive of this, but @rsc did a thorough analysis of the status quo which eventually led to #54312. Before dismissing that accepted proposal (which I forgot about, and which would already get us 90% there w/o removing all of the now expected - at least by some - rewriting), we need to discuss this in the proposal review committee.

[seankhliao]

I think from the outside, #54312 (comment) is the general sentiment. That analysis tries hard to justify the rewrite, but with @rsc as pretty much the only person who wants it at all, not doing any rewrites is the least surprising thing to do.

[griesemer]

@seankhliao You may well be right. Still we need to make the decision in the proposal review committee.

[magical]

The rewrites have been enabled for several years now, which means that any code that was edited/formatted during that time has had the rewrites applied. Smart quotes which were added to source text will not go away even if/when the rewrite rules are disabled, so anyone who wants the smart quotes can keep them; they can even continue to add them with editor macros, etc, if they want. Meanwhile, those of us who do not want smart quotes cannot currently easily avoid them without subverting gofmt. This seems, to me, to be a point in favor of removing the rewrite rules.

I agree with @cespare's assessment that the number of people who proactively want smart quote rewriting seems very small, possibly N=1.