Block-like array initializers are not preserved

[makinako]

The Google Java Style Guide specifies that arrays may be formatted in a block-like fashion, however google-java-format clobbers this to one line per element.

For example, the following:

protected static final byte[] TEST_ARRAY =
      new byte[] {
        (byte) 0x31, (byte) 0x32, (byte) 0x33, (byte) 0x34, (byte) 0x35, (byte) 0x36, (byte) 0xFF, (byte) 0xFF
      };

becomes

  protected static final byte[] TEST_ARRAY =
      new byte[] {
        (byte) 0x31,
        (byte) 0x32,
        (byte) 0x33,
        (byte) 0x34,
        (byte) 0x35,
        (byte) 0x36,
        (byte) 0xFF,
        (byte) 0xFF
      };

For larger formatted constant definitions, formatting is essential to preserving understanding of the structure. It seems like preserving formatting should either be default behaviour, or an option.

[cushon]

The original formatting exceeds the column limit, and the formatter doesn't introduce block or grid-like layouts, but if you manually reformat that into a grid the formatter will preserve that grid-like layout when it runs.

$ google-java-format T.java
class T {
  protected static final byte[] TEST_ARRAY = {
    (byte) 0x31, (byte) 0x32, (byte) 0x33, (byte) 0x34,
    (byte) 0x35, (byte) 0x36, (byte) 0xFF, (byte) 0xFF
  };
}

(This is one of the few places the formatter preserves existing formatting decisions, instead of ignoring existing whitespace when making formatting decisions.)

[makinako]

Yes in that case that makes total sense! There seems to be a bit more to this though. When I looked at what was happening in my code, I saw that some of my arrays (that were <100 chars) were indented by a mix of tabs and spaces, not just spaces.

See the following:

public class Main {

  protected static final byte[] TEST_ARRAY_TABS =
	new byte[] {
		(byte) 0x31, (byte) 0x32, (byte) 0x33, (byte) 0x34, 
		(byte) 0x35, (byte) 0x36, (byte) 0xFF, (byte) 0xFF
      };

  protected static final byte[] TEST_ARRAY_SPACES =
    new byte[] {
      (byte) 0x31, (byte) 0x32, (byte) 0x33, (byte) 0x34, 
      (byte) 0x35, (byte) 0x36, (byte) 0xFF, (byte) 0xFF
      };

  protected static final byte[] TEST_ARRAY_TABS_AND_SPACES =
    new byte[] {
        (byte) 0x31, (byte) 0x32, (byte) 0x33, (byte) 0x34, 
	(byte) 0x35, (byte) 0x36, (byte) 0xFF, (byte) 0xFF
      };

}

The first two remain intact, the third reformats to one-per-line. This makes it easy to avoid the problem, but I suspect the expected behaviour should be that the tabs are converted to spaces and the block formatting is preserved in the third case.