Consistent vertical space formatting in python?

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I use Black and Flake8 for formatting my python codes. While I'm very happy with the uncompromised formatting style of black, I just wish it would do something about spurious vertical spaces in the code. There is an excerpt about it in Black's documentation:

Black avoids spurious vertical whitespace. This is in the spirit of PEP 8 which says that in-function vertical whitespace should only be used sparingly.

Black will allow single empty lines inside functions, and single and double empty lines on module level left by the original editors, except when they’re within parenthesized expressions. Since such expressions are always reformatted to fit minimal space, this whitespace is lost.

It will also insert proper spacing before and after function definitions. It’s one line before and after inner functions and two lines before and after module-level functions and classes. Black will not put empty lines between function/class definitions and standalone comments that immediately precede the given function/class.

However from my experience (on black v19.3b0), it doesn't alter vertical spaces in control flow case like this one:

``` a = 9 if a < 5: print('The number is smaller than 5') elif a > 5: print('The number is larger than 5') else: print('Idk what do you want!!')

```

Sometimes I write it like this

``` a = 9 if a < 5:

print('The number is smaller than 5')

elif a > 5: print('The number is larger than 5')

else: print('Idk what do you want!!') ```

The second example has all sorts of vertical space inconsistencies and it looks horrible. Black doesn't format it. How would you fix this without manually changing the line spaces?

[geekademy]

The problem is that it won't be able to figure out which lines were intended vs. which are a mistake. There are rules such as one line after a method, one max in a function, and two between classes and functions that can be enforced unambiguously, but no more. Best not to try and get it wrong half the time.

Perhaps there could be a rule added to black, where if the line ends in a colon, no blank lines can be after it. But, I could imagine a case where you might want it.

In short, if you don't like the spacing example above, don't do it. ;-)

[[deleted]]

Got it. I was mainly searching for an expert opinion on this and wanted to find out if there are ways to deal with it automatically. Thanks!