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:
![Removing redundant parentheses Removing redundant parentheses](https://resources.jetbrains.com/help/img/rider/2023.2/remove_redundant_parentheses.png)
Similarly, it notifies you about non-obvious operation precedences and suggests adding optional parentheses to make the code more readable:
![Adding optional parentheses to clarify operation precedence Adding optional parentheses to clarify operation precedence](https://resources.jetbrains.com/help/img/rider/2023.2/clarify_precedence_fix.png)
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 Control+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, refer to layer-based settings.
Select the scope where you want to enforce your preferences:
Place 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.
Press Control+R, C or choose
from the main menu .In the Reformat and Cleanup Code dialog that opens, select the newly created profile and choose another scope if needed. .
Click OK. JetBrains Rider will enforce your preferences in the selected scope.
If you want to arrange optional parentheses without opening the Reformat and Cleanup Code dialog to choose a profile, you can bind the created profile to the silent cleanup and run it by pressing Control+R, G. You can also create a custom cleanup profile that would combine applying optional parentheses style with other code style tasks.
To apply preferences for optional parentheses together with all other formatting and syntax style rules to the selected code block, Alt+Enter and choose .
You can arrange optional parentheses in code that you have recently modified and are going to commit to Git. JetBrains Rider will run the selected cleanup profile before committing.
Clean up code before committing it to Git
Press Control+K or select
from the main menu.In the Commit tool window, click
and in the Commit Checks area, select the Cleanup with... checkbox.
Click Choose profile and choose your custom Code Cleanup profile.
Click Commit or Commit and Push. JetBrains Rider will run code cleanup in files staged for the commit, and then commit the changes.
You can arrange optional parentheses every time you save changes in a file to make sure that your edits always comply with your code style. Note that this will only happen when you save changes explicitly with Control+S or Control+S and will not be triggered by auto-saving. However, all auto-saved files are placed to the 'reformat and cleanup' queue and will be processed on the next explicit save.
Automatically arrange optional parentheses on saving changes
Press Control+Alt+S to open the IDE settings and then select
.Select Reformat and Cleanup Code, choose your custom Code Cleanup profile and whether to apply it to the whole file or only to the changed lines.
The next time you finish editing and save the file or all files , JetBrains Rider will clean up the affected files using the selected profile.
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 Syntax Style tab .
page of JetBrains Rider settings Control+Alt+S, and then select theIn 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, refer to layer-based settings.