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Customizable Formatting

Choose your formatter engine and configure options to match your team's style guide.

Formatter engines

StyleSQL supports multiple T-SQL formatters, each with its own strengths and weaknesses:

ScriptDom (Microsoft)

  • Strengths: Microsoft's official SQL parser and generator; understands SQL Server version‑specific syntax differences; highly configurable (35+ options).
  • Weaknesses: picky about invalid/partial SQL; heavier than others on large scripts.

Poor Man's T-SQL Formatter (PoorSQL)

  • Strengths: popular, with opinionated defaults; moderate number of options.
  • Weaknesses: slower than ScriptDom and sql‑formatter; somewhat outdated.

sql-formatter (port of Prettier SQL / SQL Formatter VSCode plugin)

  • Strengths: lightweight and fast.
  • Weaknesses: fewer SQL Server‑specific options; limited configurability.

Configuration options

Common settings (all formatters)

  • Indentation — tabs vs spaces, indent size
  • Keyword casing — UPPERCASE, lowercase, or preserve
  • Blank lines between statements — control separation between statements

Options overview

  • ScriptDom (35+ options) — including:

    • SQL version auto-detect, initial QUOTED_IDENTIFIER
    • Include semicolons, keyword casing
    • New line before FROM/JOIN/WHERE/ORDER BY
    • Multiline SELECT elements and lists
  • PoorSQL (10+ options) — including:

    • Indentation style and width
    • Statement and clause breaks
    • Expand comma lists, uppercase keywords
  • sql-formatter (5+ options) — including:

    • Indentation style and width
    • Uppercase keywords
    • Max column length, lines between queries

How to configure

  1. Open StyleSQL settings (toolbar gear icon or Tools menu)
  2. Choose your formatter under "Formatter Options"
  3. Scroll through formatter options and tweak to your liking
  4. Click Save

Tips

  • Start with ScriptDom if you're working with modern SQL Server (2016+)
  • Use Auto SQL version detection (ScriptDom) to let StyleSQL pick the right version based on your server
  • Keep formatter settings in sync across your team by sharing the settings.json file

Where settings are stored

  • %AppData%/StyleSql/settings.json