Transact-SQL snippet indentation

Question

I have yet to find anything regarding indentation of inserted Transact-SQL snippets.

So far, snippets seem to insert at the left margin with zero indentation.

As a developer of snippets, are there any keywords I can add to the XML that will tell SSMS 2012 to continue the current level of Transact-SQL indentation?

As a user of snippets, are there any SSMS settings that will tell SSMS 2012 to continue the current level of Transact-SQL indentation?

Indentation is just as important to readability in Transact-SQL scripts as in compiled languages.

I hope this is already supported in some (user and/or developer) form.  Otherwise I hope it will be implemented soon.

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Wayne Erfling (aka Cornan The Iowan)

Answer 1

Probably no help but SQLPrompt from Red Gate has what you need as one of its key features.  I am not aware of any Microsoft product that will do this.  http://www.red-gate.com/

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R, J

Answer 2

havent tried it with xml but you can try this sql formatter.

http://www.dpriver.com/pp/sqlformat.htm

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http://joeydj.com/blogs

Answer 3

I can't reproduce this.  In SQL 2012 (SP1) SSMS the tabs in this snippet are honoured:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<CodeSnippets xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/2005/CodeSnippet">
	<CodeSnippet Format="1.0.0">
		<Header>
			<Title>Tab Test</Title>
			<Description>Tab Test</Description>
			<Author>wBob</Author>
			<SnippetTypes>
				<SnippetType>Expansion</SnippetType>
			</SnippetTypes>
		</Header>
		<Snippet>
			<Code Language="SQL">
				<![CDATA[	x
	y
	z]]>
			</Code>
		</Snippet>
	</CodeSnippet>
</CodeSnippets>

I just used an ordinary tab when creating it.

Answer 4

This topic is NOT about SSMS "honoring" explicit TABs that I enter - it is about continuing the existing document indentation.

I suspect that this ability has not been carried forward from Visual Studio into SSMS, just as the "<Shortcut..." tag doesn't seem to work with SSMS Intellisense.

I've set up one of my SSMS snippets with the basic number of leading spaces for an UN-indented line, but when I use this (or other) snippets in an indented context I'll apparently need to manually indent the snippets after insertion.

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Wayne Erfling (aka Cornan The Iowan)

Answer 5

This topic is NOT about SSMS "honoring" explicit TABs that I enter - it is about continuing the existing document indentation.

I don't think there is such a functionality in SSMS.

You can show tabs & spaces

You can show/hide tabs: Edit --> Advanced --> View White Space

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Kalman Toth Database & OLAP Architect
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