Code Syntax Style: Optional Parentheses
In many cases, parentheses in expressions are optional. Sometimes they help you clarify precedence of operations — for example if ((a & b) | c), sometimes, however, they do not help at all and just add up to dead code — var d = a + (b + c);. JetBrains Rider will help you define where optional parentheses are helpful to you, and then either clean up the redundant parenthesis or automatically add missing ones where necessary.
JetBrains Rider helps you arrange optional parentheses in the existing code and takes your preferences into account when it produces new code with code completion and code generation features, applies code templates and performs refactorings.
Enforce preferences for optional parentheses
By default, JetBrains Rider highlights parentheses that do not clarify operation precedence and helps remove them:
Similarly, it notifies you about non-obvious operation precedences and suggests adding optional parentheses to make the code more readable:
Another option to enforce your preferences for optional parentheses in a bulk mode is code cleanup. You can either run code cleanup with one of the built-in profiles Full Cleanup or Reformat & Apply Syntax Style, or create and run a custom profile solely targeted at your specific task as described below.
Apply preferences for optional parentheses with code cleanup
Press Ctrl+Alt+S or choose (Windows and Linux) or (macOS) from the menu.
Go to the cleanup profiles settings page: .
Create a new profile as described in the Create a new custom cleanup profile section. In the Selected profile settings section for the new profile tick the Remove redundant parentheses and Add parentheses to explicitly specify operation precedence check boxes.
Click Save in the Settings dialog to apply the modifications and let JetBrains Rider choose where to save them, or save the modifications to a specific settings layer using the Save To list. For more information, see Layer-Based Settings.
Select the scope where you want to enforce your preferences:
Set the caret anywhere in the file to enforce your preferences to the file.
Select one or more items in the Solution Explorer to enforce your preferences in the files under these nodes and their child items.
Choose Code | Code Cleanup in the main menu.
In the Code Cleanup dialog that opens, select the newly created profile.
Click OK. JetBrains Rider will enforce your preferences in the selected scope.
If you want to arrange optional parentheses without opening the Code Cleanup dialog to choose a profile, you can bind the created profile to the silent cleanup and run it by pressing Ctrl+E, F. You can also create a custom cleanup profile that would combine applying optional parentheses style with other code style tasks.
Configure preferences for optional parentheses
Your optional parentheses preferences are saved using the mechanism of layer-based settings. Among other things, this mechanism allows you to maintain different preferences for different solutions as well as to keep these preferences under a VCS and automatically share them with your team members.
Go to the page of JetBrains Rider settings Ctrl+Alt+S, and then select the Syntax Style tab.
In the Parentheses category, specify whether to remove redundant parentheses and which operations should be considered as not having obvious precedence.
The selectors in the right column allow you to set severity levels of code inspections detecting code that differs from your preferences.
Click Save in the Settings dialog to apply the modifications and let JetBrains Rider choose where to save them, or save the modifications to a specific settings layer using the Save To list. For more information, see Layer-Based Settings.