java - How to accommodate multiple coding styles? (git vs. IDE)

Question

I am collaborating on a git-sourced, maven-managed Java project with differing code styling preferences with users using multiple IDE's (note 1).

Is there a tool or IDE configuration that will allow code to be viewed and edited using style-1, but committed to SCM using style-2?

My research points me to 'no', but a solution combining git hooks and Checkstyle/jrefactory might be possible.

So if 'no' to above, is there a tool/process that will perform the TBD process actions below?

The checkout process flow for User1 would be:

1. git pull
2. TBD process formats code to User1 style-1
3. User1 works in their preferred IDE with style-1 settings

The commit workflow for User1 would be:

1. User1 is ready to commit/push code
2. TBD process formats code to standard format style-standard
3. git push

Note 1: multiple IDE's = Eclipse, IntelliJ, Netbeans.

Note 2: My question differs from this question in that I'd like to focus on an IDE-related solution, since forcing the minority of standards-divergent users is probably a more efficient solution.

Note 3: Acknowledging that this shouldn't be done for best-practices-reasons. However, if you grant that it's time expect more flexibility from our IDEs and SCMs, this question is intended to explore those solutions.

Answer 1

First of all, you really shouldn't do that. Codestyle wars are bad for any project, and it is best to decide upon one codestyle that everybody must use. It is simple to configure IDEs to automatically apply the specified codestyle at every filesave, so the developers don't have to write code in the target codestyle themselves, they can let the IDE do that for them. True, this doesn't solve the fact that they'll have to read code in a codestyle they don't yet like, but it's a lot safer than having invisible automatic code changes; that's a major source of bugs.

Maybe you can use Eclipse's code formatter from the command line to apply a different codestyle. You'd have to set up git hooks, make sure everybody has Eclipse available, and provide the proper configuration files for their preferred codestyle. You'd need hooks both for post-checkout and pre-commit, one to set up the user's codestyle, the other to commit in the central codestyle. To go one step further, you can play with the index to add the formatted code so that it doesn't include style differences in git diff (although they will show up in git diff --staged).

Again, you shouldn't do that.