What is the best indentation style in C?

5

Options
Considered

14

User
Recs.

Oct 10, 2018

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

5 Options Considered

Best indentation style in C	Price	Last Updated
-- Allman Style	-	Oct 10, 2018
-- K&R (UNIX Kernel) Style	-	May 19, 2018
-- Whitesmiths style	-	Jun 5, 2018
-- (Linux) Kernel Style	-	Jul 15, 2017
-- GNU style	-	May 4, 2016

Allman Style

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Top Pro

The block of code is disconnected from the control statement

The block of code itself is disconnected from the control statement which allows developers to comment out or remove entirely a control statement without having a large risk of encountering syntax errors because of extra or missing braces. See More

Top Con

Uses more vertical space than other styles

Since each bracket is its own line, the Allman style takes more vertical space than other indent styles. This is one of the reasons that a lot of book authors do not prefer to use Allman style in their texts. See More

Top Pro

Easy to find matching braces

The code is clearly set apart from the statement by lines that are almost completely whitespace and the fact that the opening braces line up in the same column as the closing braces makes it easier to match them. See More

K&R (UNIX Kernel) Style

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Top Con

May be hard to insert new lines inside statements if there are no braces

The K&R style uses braces only when necessary. So for example: if(condition) doSomething(); But this can be annoying if you need to put something inside that if statement, because you have to go and add braces to make sure that will be grouped correctly with the statement that was before. See More

Top Pro

No space is wasted with the opening brace

With this style, one of the advantages is that the opening brace does not take a whole line for itself, wasting a lot of space. The closing brace though is indented on the same level as the control statement it belongs to, making it easier to understand which block of code it's closing. See More

Whitesmiths style

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Indenting the braces makes them feel that they are subordinate to the control statement

Indenting the braces makes them feel that they are subordinate to the control statements. Which helps the reader understand which block belongs to which control statement. See More

Top Con

The closing brace does not line up with the corresponding statement

The closing brace does not line up with the statement it belongs to. See More

Top Pro

Blocks are set apart from control statements

Like the Allman style, with the Witesmiths style the blocks are clearly set apart from the control statements. See More

Top Con

May be confusing to the eye

The braces confuse the focus of the reader's eye and this causes the reader to look longer at the line right after the opening brace and at the line right before the closing brace. See More

GNU style

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Harder to understand which statement the ending brace belongs to

Since braces are in a newline and indented by two spaces, it may be hard to understand what statement the ending brace belongs to. See More

Top Pro

Limited portability problems

Since GNU programs are designed to be compiled with the GNU C Compiler (gcc) and run on only one system, the GNU system, they have virtually no portability issues. See More

Top Pro

Comments are written in English

The GNU coding standard requires that programmers write their comments in English because English is the most widely known language by programmers all over the world. This makes programs written in GNU style easy to understand internationally. See More

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