How to turn off the Eclipse code formatter for certains sections of maven pom.xml

Question

I would like to tell to Eclipse to do not format pom.xml property(ies).

In my example, I append a long proxyString argument to maven release plugin:

</build>
    </plugins>
        (...)
        <plugin>
            <artifactId>maven-release-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>2.5.2</version>
            <!-- in case of error while release prepare or dryRun release : 
                 check proxyString should be on one line (withour CR) -->
            <configuration>
                <arguments>${proxyString}</arguments>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
</build>

When I reformat the pom.xml, Eclipse append some Carriage Returns to that definition :

    <profile>
        <id>proxy</id>
        <activation>
            <activeByDefault>false</activeByDefault>
        </activation>
        <properties>
            <proxyString>-Djava.net.useSystemProxies=true -Dhttp.proxyHost=myProxy -Dhttp.proxyPort=3128 -Dhttps.proxyHost=myProxy -Dhttps.proxyPort=3128</proxyString>
        </properties>
    </profile>

This result in a break into the release lifecycle:

No goals have been specified for this build. You must specify a valid lifecycle phase

Does exist a way to tell Eclipse to not format a portion of a pom.xml ? (or maybe there is a better way to forward proxy settings to maven release plugin).

I know this question is really close to mine, but I didn't found how to apply it to xml file.

Proxy host and port are defined twice. – Stefan Aug 06 '15 at 08:54 — Stefan, Aug 06 '15 at 08:54
@Stefan one for http and one for https – boly38 Aug 06 '15 at 14:37 — boly38, Aug 06 '15 at 14:37

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 06 '15 at 08:43

2

You can select part of the pom which you want to format and press

CTRL + SHIFT + F

When you press 'CTRL + SHIFT + F' without selection it will format entire file.
With selection will format only selected part.

answered Aug 06 '15 at 08:43

gandra404

5,727
10
52
76

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 06 '15 at 08:34

1

Unfortunately there seems to be no way to disable the XML formatter for some part of the code (as it is possible with Java code).

You can - however - increase the maximum length of lines that the XML formatter adheres to:

Window -> Preferences -> XML Files -> Editor

Set the "Line width" to whatever value you want. I have set mine to "999". Now it does not break lines that are too long. But of course now I have myself to make those lines short enough so that it keeps being readable.

answered Aug 06 '15 at 08:34

Seelenvirtuose

20,273
6
37
66

If this feature is missing, could we suggest this feature somewhere ? does this feature rely on eclipse core product or an xml dedicated plugin ? a link to the related tracker ? – boly38 Aug 07 '15 at 06:50

Paul Ackley · Answer 3 · 2020-05-07T15:18:30.407

I used a CDATA section enclosing the text I wanted to keep as is (prevent formatting). For example:

<additionalJvmArgs><![CDATA[-Djavax.net.debug=none -Djavax.net.ssl.trustStore=${project.basedir}/../certs/my.truststore -Djavax.net.ssl.trustStorePassword=XXXXX]]></additionalJvmArgs>

Then under Window -> Preferences -> XML -> XML Files -> Editor I selected the Preserve whitespace in tags with PCDATA content.

This worked for me.

How to turn off the Eclipse code formatter for certains sections of maven pom.xml

3 Answers3