In MDLSITE-6594 it was agreed that 'There should be only one blank space before and after the assignment operator "="'. However, this has caused some problems so this issue is to re-evaluate it.

Voting

Timeframe

Voting for this issue opens immediately (Monday 20th March 2023) and will remain open until Thursday 30th March 2023 at 12pm UTC.

Voting options

The following options are suggested for voting:

Voting options

Option A

Continue with the rule that was agreed upon in MDLSITE-6594 (so only one space before and after = sign) and work out if some exceptions (like version.php) are required. 

If you vote for this option, it would be great if you could give the exceptions you would expect.

$forumid = required_param('id', PARAM_INT);

$userids = optional_param_array('userids', [], PARAM_INT);

$discussionids = optional_param_array('discids', [], PARAM_INT);

$from = optional_param_array('from', [], PARAM_INT);

$to = optional_param_array('to', [], PARAM_INT);

Option B

• Allow one or more spaces before the operator.
• Recommend that there should only be one space before the operator.
• Option B.1
  • If the code has more than 1 space before the operator, emit a coding-style warning.
• Option B.2:
  • If the code has more than 1 space before the operator, don't emit any coding-style warning.

This is what is recommended:

$action = required_param('action', PARAM_ALPHA);

$id = optional_param('entryid', 0, PARAM_INT);

$confirm = optional_param('confirm', 0, PARAM_BOOL);

But this is valid too. With B.1 and B.2 you'll vote if a warning should be raised by CiBoT or not:

$action   = required_param('action', PARAM_ALPHA);

$id       = optional_param('entryid', 0, PARAM_INT);

$confirm  = optional_param('confirm', 0, PARAM_BOOL);

Option C

Entirely revert the policy agreed upon in MDLSITE-6594. Either one or more spaces before the operator is fine. moodle-cs checks for spaces before operators will stay reverted.