Preprocessor directives indentation in Visual C++ 2010

Question

I often find myself in situations where I would like to indent preprocessor directives like the rest of the code (e.g. #if indented like if). It seems legal, it's common sense that it's sometimes a good thing, but Visual won't make it easy.

Is there a way to prevent the Visual C++ 2010 editor from sticking the code to the left each time I innocently press #? And to not break preprocessor directives indentation with auto-indent (CTRL+K, CTRL+F)? Or even better, to handle preprocessor directives like everything else?

Oboe

For this reason I started using an external editor for editing heavy preprocessor code... – Bujumbura

Answer 1

My approach is to keep the # in the first column and indent the subsequent word, as in:

#ifdef FIRST
#  include "first.h"
#else
#  include "second.h"
#endif

Gaucho

Except you won't be able to select multiple lines and (Shift+)Tab them. – Bujumbura

+1 for good preprocessor style. Boost uses this style and it's much clearer which lines are preprocessor directives while maintaining branching indentation – Pikestaff

+1 as it's indeed a good, often seen, workaround. But I still feel like proper indentation support would make me happier. So I'll wait and see if I get other answers. – Oboe

Looks like that's the best solution until Microsoft decides to add the option. – Oboe

Answer 2

At some point visualstudio (checked in vs2015) acquired options > text editor > c/c++ > formatting > indentation > position of preprocessor directives. Choose 'leave indented'. The sample doesn't look exactly like what you want, but it works, just try it.

Caller

It looks like this setting was added in VS2015. – Habit

This is clearly what the accepted answer should now be. :) Although it would be nice if the [Ctrl]+[K] [Ctrl]+[F] used this. :( – Verlaverlee

Answer 3

In the Visual Studio 2010 options (Tools->Options)

Go to Text Editor -> C/C++ -> Tabs

Under indenting select Block instead of smart.

This will prevent the # key from forcing you to the start of the line, however if you use Ctrl+K Ctrl+F it will still apply smart formatting and remove the tabs.

Edit: This will also disable automatic indenting/unindenting in other places. Beware.

Moran

Answer 4

Workaround: When you first type the # and Visual Studio removes your indentation, press ctrl+z to undo the auto formatting.

Nutt