Anyone who write in C/C++

Question

What are your indenting habits? I always use Emacs as my text editor and I have reached the epiphany that I don't like the way it does indenting. Do you have a certain way that looks nice and easy to read? I was recently criticized for having ugly code.
Please post samples.

Answer 1

shining wrote:when you contribute to other projects, you should/must follow the indentation style and convention of the project.
+1
For your own projects, just use a common coding style, e.g. the one that the particular programming language's designers recommend. There's no need to create your own. I like the "K&R" brace style for C, which Dennis Ritchie, the language's creator, advocates (it's named after him and Brian Kernighan, the authors of the C Programming Language). Opening braces for function definitions go on their own line, indented to the same level as the return type of the function. Closing braces should line up with their opening counterparts. Opening braces for all blocks of code inside the function should be on the same line as the keyword that they modify. Closing braces should line up with the first non-whitespace character on the line that holds the opening brace. An example follows. Note that I'm using four spaces rather than the two-spaced tabs from Judd's guideline.
int main(int argc, char **argv)
int i;
for (i = 0; i < 100; i++) {
if (i % 2 == 0) {
printf("The number %d is even.\n", i);
} else {
printf("The number %d is odd.\n", i);
printf("Ignore the fact that the `if' block uses unnecessary braces for a one-line block\n");
return 0;
Bjarne Stroustrup, the creator of C++, recommends the same brace style for C++. He says to define classes like C structs with the opening brace on the same line as the declaration. This allows you to differentiate top-level functions and classes programmatically. Languages with one primary implementation often have an official coding style. Java's is here and Python's is here, for example.