unusual behaviour regarding indent configuration reflection, after updating languages.toml

[EmranMR]

Summary

Hi

There is a bug whereby the changes in the indent setting is not reflected unless the file is forcefully formatted.

Please see #11139 for photos

Reproduction Steps

I tried this:

1. hx
2. either use an old file or make a new one.
3. write some code make sure there are tabs etc
4. change the indent configuration in ~/.config/helix/languages.toml

here is an example for php

# the default is 4 we just change to 1 to see if it reflects
[[language]]                                                                                                                    
name = "php"                                                                                                                   
indent = { tab-width = 1, unit = " " }

[[language]]                                                                                                                    
name = "php-only"                                                                                                                   
indent = { tab-width = 1, unit = " " }

5. Now save the config
6. go to the editor that has the file open
   • You can either do :config-reload command
   • or even quit via :q and open the editor again to ensure the config has been refreshed
7. In the same file, try to press return or tab or whatever.
8. You will see that the editor still adds 4 spaces!
9. The only way to reflect the new config is by doing the :format command to forcefully format the file, and from now on the indentation works as expected.

I expected this to happen:

• Indentation to be reflected on files with codes in it after :config-reload or restarting helix

Instead, this happened:

• I have to manually force format the file, before I see the changes take in effect

Helix log

~/.cache/helix/helix.log

please provide a copy of `~/.cache/helix/helix.log` here if possible, you may need to redact some of the lines

Platform

MacOS

Terminal Emulator

xterm-256color

Installation Method

source

Helix Version

24.03-237-gfc97ecc3

[pascalkuthe]

This is not a bug. Indentation is autodetected and indentation settings only represent what helix uses for new files.

hat format does depends only on what your formatter/LSP server does and is orthogonal to helix builtin indentation config

[jilotta]

indentation settings only represent what helix uses for new files.

They don't even do that: still defaults to two spaces instead of an eight-character wide hard tab for me for some reason on Helix 24.7.

https://asciinema.org/a/0W4xSujrXKEQo4EHoQPpn7wQe

[EmranMR]

Indentation is autodetected and indentation settings only represent what helix uses for new files.

@pascalkuthe Ah I actually never noticed that, I tried a GUI editor as well, and they follow the same workflow.

However after experimenting I am still not sure if this is a bug. I do not have any formatter enabled for php. I open the same file in helix and my GUI editor (Nova). I think there is an issue with autodetecting indentation? so the actual file (not new) has indentation of 4 as you can see when I return/indent in helix I get 12 vs Nova correctly detecting the indentation

Helix

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Nova

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