Visual C++ Code Formatting with AStyle

Visual Studio VBA macro to format the current C++/h document using the open source code formatter AStyle. Simply copy the macro to the “Macros->Module1” is Visual Studio, then hookup a hot key to it.

Download AStyle from http://astyle.sourceforge.net/ and extract to a directory (code will look in the download directory off the user’s home directory). Update the shellCmd string variable with any formatting options AStyle should apply (http://astyle.sourceforge.net/astyle.html).

Format string “-A4Uxpfn”
-A4 = stroustrup style
-U  = unpad paren
-x  = delete empty lines
-p  = pad operators
-f  = break blocks
-n  = do not retain backup

Code Snippet

1. Public Sub formatDocWithAStyle()
2. Dim fileName As String
3. Dim textDocument As TextDocument
4. Dim startPoint As EnvDTE.EditPoint
5. Dim endPoint As EnvDTE.EditPoint
6. Dim text As String
7. Dim shellCmd As String
8. Dim procId As Integer
9. If DTE.ActiveDocument Is Nothing Then
10. Return
11. End If
12. fileName = Environ$(“TEMP”) & “\formattedCode”
13. shellCmd = “”"” & Environ$(“HOMEPATH”) & “\Downloads\AStyle\bin\AStyle” & “”"” & ” -A4Uxpfn “ & “”"” & fileName & “”"”
14. textDocument = DTE.ActiveDocument.Object
15. startPoint = textDocument.StartPoint.CreateEditPoint
16. endPoint = textDocument.EndPoint.CreateEditPoint
17. text = startPoint.GetText(endPoint)
18. My.Computer.FileSystem.WriteAllText(fileName, text, False)
19. procId = Shell(shellCmd, AppWinStyle.Hide, True, 30000)
20. If procId = 0 Then
21. text = My.Computer.FileSystem.ReadAllText(fileName)
22. startPoint.ReplaceText(endPoint, text, vsEPReplaceTextOptions.vsEPReplaceTextTabsSpaces)
23. End If
24. End Sub