Micro reindents settings.json files with spaces on open

[pwhelan]

Description of the problem or steps to reproduce

When opening JSON files, even with all possible ftoptions settings set to tabstospaces:false micro keeps reindenting then overwriting the settings file with spaces instead upon opening.

This does not happen with any other files, just settings.json, as far as I can tell.

This is my settings.json file:

{
    "*.json": {
        "tabstospaces": false
    },
    "colorscheme": "simple",
    "ft:json": {
        "tabstospaces": false
    },
    "ftoptions": false,
    "tabsize": 8
}

Specifications

Version: 2.0.13
Commit hash: 68d88b5
OS: macOS
Terminal: iTerm2 3.5.0
Compiled on June 06, 2024

[dmaluka]

There was a bug #2647 causing needless overwriting of settings.json every time when micro starts. It was fixed in #3009 but this fix is not present in 2.0.13.

After the fix, micro writes settings.json only when the user sets an option via the set command in micro. In that case, micro still enforces a "canonical" JSON formatting, in particular replaces tabs with spaces. So if you don't want micro to mess with your settings.json, just don't use the set command.

[kaitlynia]

Wouldn't it make sense to not do anything if the JSON was already valid? For example, I have set tabsize 2 and use consistent spacing throughout in settings.json, but changing themes via set still uses the default tabsize 4. A very minor nitpick but I think it should at least respect user indentation settings when it "enforces" the formatting.

[dmaluka]

I think this issue can be closed, since #3009 was merged long ago, and not so long ago also #3618 was merged, which made it even better: plugins are no longer allowed to modify settings.json behind your back. So now (hopefully) the only case when settings.json is written (and thus reformatted) by micro itself is when the user executes the set command. We still keep this "annoying but convenient" behavior of the set command, for compatibility.

So like I said before, if you don't want micro to mess with your settings.json, just don't use the set command, edit your settings.json manually instead.

[dmaluka]

That being said, I think it would make sense to add a locksettings option, similar to lockbindings implemented in #3618, to allow the user to disable this default behavior and use the set command to set options just for the current session, not permanently, thus without overwriting settings.json (i.e. like with the setlocal command, but globally, not for a single buffer).

[dmaluka]

Wouldn't it make sense to not do anything if the JSON was already valid? For example, I have set tabsize 2 and use consistent spacing throughout in settings.json, but changing themes via set still uses the default tabsize 4. A very minor nitpick but I think it should at least respect user indentation settings when it "enforces" the formatting.

That would be very tricky to implement. Or not even to implement but just to define how exactly it should behave. Ok, you use consistent 2-space indentation throughout the file, so, is micro supposed to detect that and use 2-space indentation too? What if you slop just at one line and use 3 spaces instead of 2 there (while still 2 spaces in the rest of the file)? Should micro no longer respect it then? Or if 60% of lines use 2 spaces but 40% use 3 spaces? And similar questions not just about indentation but also about the order of settings (alphabetical vs user's custom one), and so on and so forth.