This page describes the X server's current coding style.  While the server was recently reformatted to fit this style, most modules have varied and disparate coding styles.  Above all, the cardinal rule is to fit in: make sure your changes reflect the coding style of the surrounding code. 

We use the `indent` command line in this script here: [[http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/util/modular/tree/x-indent.sh|http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/util/modular/tree/x-indent.sh]] with manual editing afterwards to fix the cases where indent gets hopelessly confused. 

* Four-space indents (no tabs, not even if your editor wants to collapse eight consecutive spaces down to a single tab) 
* 78-column limit 
* Function return type (and any modifiers, eg `static`) on a line by itself 
* Opening curly brace on the same line as the control construct: `if (foo) {` 
      * Closing braces aligned with the keyword that opened them (K&R not GNU) 
      * `else` on a new line from the closing } of the preceding `if` (i.e. not cuddling) 
* Opening curly brace for functions in column 0 
* Keywords punctuated like `if (x >= 0)` 
* Functions punctuated like `doSomethingClever(a, b, c);` 
* `case` aligned in the same column as the `switch` 
* If wrapping is required, function arguments to be aligned to the opening parenthesis of that column 
* Wrap structs in typedefs 
* C-style <span style="display:none">foo</span> comments, rather than C++/C99-style // foo 
* C89 + some extensions, see [[http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver/tree/doc/c-extensions|http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver/tree/doc/c-extensions]] 
Notable objectionable things in the current coding style: 

* Most structs have a typedef both for the struct and for a pointer to the struct.