Formatting rule for braces - some specifics please.

[Colm Dickson]

Hello all,
A code formatting question where I cannot derive to 'when to' and 'when not to' from the style guide..

I fear I am in breach of some formatting rules when it comes to using my braces and indenting. Now, reading the style guide it recommends an indentation of 4 spaces but where it is not clear is when to indent. Using the example below, I start with the class definition, open my braces and then indent 4 spaces for my method.I have then indented for the if and so on as I go along, matching the closing braces up with the opening one. My question is wen to indent as I fear I'm doing too much indentation- Any hard and fast rules such as always indent after class name? Always for method etc..Basically..when should a next line line up with the brace before and when should an indent be used?

class xxxxxxxx
{
    public static void main (String[] args)
    {
        if (xxxxxx)
        {
            xxxxxxxxxxx;
            xxxxxxxxxxx;
            xxxxxxxxxxx;
            for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
            {
                if (xxxxxxxxxxxx) 
                {
                    doSomething;
                }
                doSomethingElse;       
            }
        }
    }
}

Thanks,

Colm

[Kurt Van Etten]

What you have looks fine to me--I think you're interpreting the rules exactly as they are intended. Anything that represents a nested block of code gets indented. A lot of programmers like to put the opening brace at the end of the preceding line instead of on a line by itself, and that makes the cattle drive code look a little bit spaced out. But the indentation itself is, I think, pretty standard. (I personally agree with putting the opening brace on a line by itself, it makes it a lot easier to identify the start and end of a block of code.)

[Colm Dickson]

Thanks Kurt.