Exclude files based on text they might contain

[oldergod]

Hello

In my project, I have a bunch of generated files which are present in many places. They all have a header like // Generated, do not edit.. I would like to configure Spotless to ignore those files. How could I do it?

Thank you

[oldergod]

I'm giving it a try with toggleOffOnRegex("(// My Great Header.*)")

[oldergod]

@nedtwigg It looks like this would work but the license is applied before the toggle is used and I get an error >An intermediate step removed a match of ^(// Code generated[\s\S]*)$

Is the order on purpose? Would you be open to change it?

[nedtwigg]

You want Spotless to skip formatting the entire file, correct?

spotless/plugin-gradle/src/main/java/com/diffplug/gradle/spotless/FormatExtension.java

Lines 852 to 856 in d245b60

	/**
	* Given a regex with *exactly one capturing group*, disables formatting
	* inside that captured group.
	*/
	public void toggleOffOnRegex(String regex) {

is a variant of

spotless/plugin-gradle/src/main/java/com/diffplug/gradle/spotless/FormatExtension.java

Lines 865 to 868 in d245b60

	/** Disables formatting between {@code spotless:off} and {@code spotless:on}. */
	public void toggleOffOn() {
	toggleOffOn(PipeStepPair.defaultToggleOff(), PipeStepPair.defaultToggleOn());
	}

which is only for skipping part of a file. To skip a whole file, you'll want to use this somehow

spotless/lib/src/main/java/com/diffplug/spotless/FormatterStep.java

Lines 48 to 58 in d245b60

	/**
	* Returns a new FormatterStep which will only apply its changes
	* to files which pass the given filter.
	*
	* @param contentPattern
	* java regular expression used to filter out files which content doesn't contain pattern
	* @return FormatterStep
	*/
	public default FormatterStep filterByContentPattern(String contentPattern) {
	return new FilterByContentPatternFormatterStep(this, contentPattern);
	}

but you'll want to apply it to every single step. I think your request is reasonable and easy to build. The first part is to figure out how to document the feature. Maybe targetExcludeIfContentMatches(String regex) or targetExcludeIfContentContains(String substring). Happy to merge a PR for this feature. Even if a PR only has the documentation change (Gradle or Maven or both) maybe somebody else will finish the implementation because it's pretty easy.

[oldergod]

I realized that toggling cannot be use because it's only part of a file as you said. I would instead want a file to be ignored indeed if the regex match, so toggle isn't it. I'll try to push a PR.

[nedtwigg]

Being implemented at #1749