rust-lang / rust-lang/rustfmt

Poor formatting of multiplication/division of parenthesized expression containing +/-

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A-binary-ops I-poor-formatting S-duplicate
Dominant language
Rust
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Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

When a long parenthesized expression containing addition or subtraction is followed by multiplication or division, the formatted result can be confusing. These are some examples:

fn main() {
    let dv = (2. * m * l * dtheta * dtheta * theta.sin()
        + 3. * m * g * theta.sin() * theta.cos()
        + 4. * u
        - 4. * b * v)
        / (4. * (M + m) - 3. * m * theta.cos().powi(2));
    let ddtheta = (-3. * m * l * dtheta * dtheta * theta.sin() * theta.cos()
        - 6. * (M + m) * g * theta.sin()
        - 6. * (u - b * v) * theta.cos())
        / (4. * l * (m + M) - 3. * m * l * theta.cos().powi(2));
}
fn main() {
    let V: Array2<_> = (((&lq + &vi).mapv(f64::exp) - &q) * (mi_minus_mi_t).mapv(f64::cos)
        - ((&lq - &vi).mapv(f64::exp) - &q) * (mi_plus_mi_t).mapv(f64::cos))
        * e.as_row()
        * e.as_column()
        * 0.5;
}
fn main() {
    dVdm.slice_mut(s![.., .., j]).assign(
        &(((Array2::zeros((d, d)) + u.as_column() - u.as_row()) * &U1
            + (Array2::<f64>::zeros((d, d)) + u.as_column() + u.as_row()) * &U2)
            * e.as_column()
            * e.as_row()),
    );
}
fn main() {
    {
        {
            {
                {
                    {
                        let LdXi: Array2<_> = (dmahai
                            + kdX.slice(s![.., i, d]).into_column()
                            + kdX.slice(s![.., j, d]))
                            * &L;
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

In all these examples, there is a multiplication or division of a parenthesized expression containing + or -. The * or / is indented by the same amount as the + or -, suggesting that it's at the same level, which by order of operations would mean that only the last expression would be multiplied/divided. It's not obvious that the + or - are in fact inside a parenthesized expression.

A relatively small change that would help would be to increase the indentation of the expressions inside the parentheses, like this:

fn main() {
    let dv = (2. * m * l * dtheta * dtheta * theta.sin()
            + 3. * m * g * theta.sin() * theta.cos()
            + 4. * u
            - 4. * b * v)
        / (4. * (M + m) - 3. * m * theta.cos().powi(2));
    let ddtheta = (-3. * m * l * dtheta * dtheta * theta.sin() * theta.cos()
            - 6. * (M + m) * g * theta.sin()
            - 6. * (u - b * v) * theta.cos())
        / (4. * l * (m + M) - 3. * m * l * theta.cos().powi(2));
}
fn main() {
    let V: Array2<_> = (((&lq + &vi).mapv(f64::exp) - &q) * (mi_minus_mi_t).mapv(f64::cos)
            - ((&lq - &vi).mapv(f64::exp) - &q) * (mi_plus_mi_t).mapv(f64::cos))
        * e.as_row()
        * e.as_column()
        * 0.5;
}
fn main() {
    dVdm.slice_mut(s![.., .., j]).assign(
        &(((Array2::zeros((d, d)) + u.as_column() - u.as_row()) * &U1
                + (Array2::<f64>::zeros((d, d)) + u.as_column() + u.as_row()) * &U2)
            * e.as_column()
            * e.as_row()),
    );
}
fn main() {
    {
        {
            {
                {
                    {
                        let LdXi: Array2<_> = (dmahai
                                + kdX.slice(s![.., i, d]).into_column()
                                + kdX.slice(s![.., j, d]))
                            * &L;
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

I think a better solution would be to make the parentheses more obvious by adding new lines after the opening parenthesis and before the closing parenthesis, with something like this:

fn main() {
    let dv = (
            2. * m * l * dtheta * dtheta * theta.sin()
            + 3. * m * g * theta.sin() * theta.cos()
            + 4. * u
            - 4. * b * v
        ) / (4. * (M + m) - 3. * m * theta.cos().powi(2));
    let ddtheta = (
            -3. * m * l * dtheta * dtheta * theta.sin() * theta.cos()
            - 6. * (M + m) * g * theta.sin()
            - 6. * (u - b * v) * theta.cos()
        ) / (4. * l * (m + M) - 3. * m * l * theta.cos().powi(2));
}
fn main() {
    let V: Array2<_> = (
            ((&lq + &vi).mapv(f64::exp) - &q) * (mi_minus_mi_t).mapv(f64::cos)
            - ((&lq - &vi).mapv(f64::exp) - &q) * (mi_plus_mi_t).mapv(f64::cos)
        )
        * e.as_row()
        * e.as_column()
        * 0.5;
}
fn main() {
    dVdm.slice_mut(s![.., .., j]).assign(&(
        (
            (Array2::zeros((d, d)) + u.as_column() - u.as_row()) * &U1
            + (Array2::<f64>::zeros((d, d)) + u.as_column() + u.as_row()) * &U2
        )
        * e.as_column()
        * e.as_row()
    ));
}
fn main() {
    {
        {
            {
                {
                    {
                        let LdXi: Array2<_> = (
                            dmahai
                            + kdX.slice(s![.., i, d]).into_column()
                            + kdX.slice(s![.., j, d])
                        ) * &L;
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Although doing so is not necessary for clarity, if the closing parenthesis is moved to a new line, we could eliminate some of the extra new lines, so the middle examples would become this:

fn main() {
    let V: Array2<_> = (
            ((&lq + &vi).mapv(f64::exp) - &q) * (mi_minus_mi_t).mapv(f64::cos)
            - ((&lq - &vi).mapv(f64::exp) - &q) * (mi_plus_mi_t).mapv(f64::cos)
        )
        * e.as_row() * e.as_column() * 0.5;
}
fn main() {
    dVdm.slice_mut(s![.., .., j]).assign(&(
        (
            (Array2::zeros((d, d)) + u.as_column() - u.as_row()) * &U1
            + (Array2::<f64>::zeros((d, d)) + u.as_column() + u.as_row()) * &U2
        )
        * e.as_column() * e.as_row()
    ));
}

or this:

fn main() {
    let V: Array2<_> = (
            ((&lq + &vi).mapv(f64::exp) - &q) * (mi_minus_mi_t).mapv(f64::cos)
            - ((&lq - &vi).mapv(f64::exp) - &q) * (mi_plus_mi_t).mapv(f64::cos)
        ) * e.as_row() * e.as_column() * 0.5;
}
fn main() {
    dVdm.slice_mut(s![.., .., j]).assign(&(
        (
            (Array2::zeros((d, d)) + u.as_column() - u.as_row()) * &U1
            + (Array2::<f64>::zeros((d, d)) + u.as_column() + u.as_row()) * &U2
        ) * e.as_column() * e.as_row()
    ));
}

Contributor guide

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First steps

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  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

No source file or test is named in the issue. Start by reproducing the Rust examples with rustfmt, then trace the formatting path for parenthesized expressions containing + or - followed by multiplication or division. Done means the grouping is visually unambiguous without changing formatting for unrelated expressions.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust
Domain
tooling
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
42/100

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