Format T-SQL in VS Code — the classic SSMS "Poor Man's T-SQL Formatter" style, modernized. Battle-tested against 396 real-world SQL files (First Responder Kit, Ola Hallengren, sp_WhoIsActive, DarlingData, tSQLt).
Highlights
- Native speed, zero dependencies — formatting runs in a bundled native binary (win-x64/arm64, macOS x64/arm64, Linux x64/arm64). No .NET runtime, no language server, nothing to install.
- Diff preview before you commit — review proposed formatting in VS Code's built-in diff editor, then Apply or Discard.
- Minimal edits — only changed lines are touched: cursor position survives, undo is one clean step.
- Never destroys invalid SQL — unparseable input still gets best-effort formatting plus a diagnostic comment with line numbers, never a silent failure.
- Your style, preserved — both
expr AS alias and alias = expr column alias styles are kept as you wrote them.
- 27 formatting options — from classic SSMS defaults to trailing commas, vertical alignment of columns and JOINs, and compact single-statement blocks.
Commands
| Command |
Description |
| Right Way SQL: Format Document |
Formats the entire active SQL file |
| Right Way SQL: Format Selection |
Formats only the selected text |
| Right Way SQL: Format Document (Preview) |
Opens a native diff (current ↔ formatted) with Apply/Discard |
All commands are available in the right-click context menu when editing a .sql file. The extension also registers as the document formatter for SQL, so Format Document (⇧⌥F / Shift+Alt+F) and format-on-save work too.
Diff preview
Format Document (Preview) shows the proposed formatting in VS Code's built-in diff editor — green/red change highlighting, side-by-side or inline — before anything touches your file. Choose Apply to apply (formatting re-runs against the document's current text, so it's safe even if you kept typing), or Discard to close the preview unchanged.
Minimal edits
Formatting is applied as line-level minimal edits (computed with an LCS diff) rather than replacing the whole document: cursor position survives, undo is a single clean step, and unchanged lines are untouched. Replacement text uses the document's own line endings.
Invalid SQL
If the input can't be fully parsed, the formatter still produces best-effort output, prefixed with a comment describing what's wrong (with source line numbers — e.g. unclosed string literal, unexpected token), and the extension shows a warning toast. The underlying CLI signals this with exit code 5.
Example
Input:
select e.employeeid,e.firstname,e.lastname,d.departmentname from employees e inner join departments d on e.departmentid=d.departmentid where e.active=1 order by e.lastname
Output (default settings):
SELECT
e.EmployeeId
,e.FirstName
,e.LastName
,d.DepartmentName
FROM employees e
INNER JOIN departments d
ON e.DepartmentId = d.DepartmentId
WHERE e.Active = 1
ORDER BY e.LastName
Settings
All settings are under rightWaySqlFormatter.*:
General
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
executablePath |
"" |
Explicit path to the SqlFormatter binary. Auto-detected (bundled binary, then PATH) if empty. |
indentString |
"space" |
Indent character: space or tab. |
indentSize |
4 |
Spaces per indent level (or tab display width). |
maxLineWidth |
999 |
Max line width before wrapping. |
newStatementLineBreaks |
2 |
Blank lines between statements. |
newClauseLineBreaks |
1 |
Blank lines between clauses. |
Keywords
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
uppercaseKeywords |
true |
Uppercase SQL keywords. |
standardizeKeywords |
true |
Normalize keyword synonyms (e.g. NATIONAL CHARACTER VARYING → NVARCHAR). |
Expansion / line breaking
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
expandCommaLists |
true |
Expand comma-separated lists onto separate lines. |
selectFirstColumnOnNewLine |
false |
Break the first SELECT column to a new line instead of keeping it beside SELECT. |
expandInLists |
true |
Expand IN (...) lists. |
trailingCommas |
false |
Trailing commas instead of leading. |
expandBooleanExpressions |
true |
Expand AND/OR onto separate lines. |
expandCaseStatements |
true |
Expand CASE/WHEN/THEN/END. |
expandBetweenConditions |
true |
Expand BETWEEN ... AND .... |
breakJoinOnSections |
false |
Break JOIN ON sections onto separate lines. |
indentJoinOnClause |
false |
Indent the ON clause an extra level relative to JOIN. |
indentWhereAndOrConditions |
false |
Put WHERE's AND/OR conditions on separate lines, aligned under the first condition. |
Aliases and alignment
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
columnAliasStyle |
"as" |
as (col AS alias) or equals (alias = col). Existing alias style is preserved either way. |
columnAlwaysHasAlias |
false |
Ensure every SELECT column has an explicit alias. |
alignColumnDefinitions |
false |
Align AS keywords vertically in the SELECT list (requires expandCommaLists). |
alignColumnDefinitionsInDDL |
false |
In CREATE TABLE, align name / type / nullability / constraints into columns. |
ddlConstraintsOnNewLine |
false |
In CREATE TABLE, each column constraint on its own line. |
alignTableJoins |
false |
Align FROM/JOIN table names, aliases, and ON conditions vertically across a query batch. |
alignTableJoinsAddAliases |
true |
With alignTableJoins: also add derived aliases to tables that have none. |
Compactness
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
compactRaiserror |
false |
Keep RAISERROR(...) argument lists on one line. |
compactSingleStatementBlocks |
false |
Render single-statement IF/ELSE/WHILE bodies (no BEGIN/END) on the control keyword's line when short enough. |
Development
The extension lives in vscode-extension/ of the main repo; formatting logic lives in the repo's .NET core library — no language server, no parsing in JS.
Build
From the vscode-extension/ directory:
npm install
npm run build:host # fast dev loop: binary for this machine only + TypeScript
npm run build # binaries for all six platforms + TypeScript
The build finds the .NET SDK automatically (checks ~/.dotnet, system locations, then PATH) and publishes self-contained, trimmed SqlFormatter binaries into vscode-extension/bin/<rid>/. Supported platforms: win32-x64, win32-arm64, darwin-x64, darwin-arm64, linux-x64, linux-arm64. Set RWSQL_NO_TRIM=1 to disable IL trimming when debugging the CLI.
Run in dev mode
Open the vscode-extension/ folder in VS Code (not the repo root — otherwise F5 won't find the extension manifest), then press F5 to launch an Extension Development Host. Open any .sql file there and right-click to format.
Package
Marketplace releases are platform-specific — each user downloads only their platform's binary (~12 MB) instead of all six (~44 MB):
npm run package:all
# Produces: dist/rightway-sql-formatter-<target>-<version>.vsix (one per platform)
# Publish all of them:
npx vsce publish --packagePath dist/*.vsix
For a single universal .vsix (all platforms bundled, much larger — local installs only):
npm run package
# Produces: rightway-sql-formatter-<version>.vsix
Install a .vsix manually with:
code --install-extension <file>.vsix
License
AGPL-3.0-or-later. Forked from Poor Man's T-SQL Formatter.
