Use source_gen

[ncuillery]

In the Dart package ecosystem, most of the packages are using source_gen which formats the output code. This process has 2 main benefits:

• The generator can just produce valid code and not care about indentation, carriage returns, etc. since the output is formatted at the end anyway
• The developer can run dart format . and there is no change in the generated code since it has already been formatted that way.

I have started using slang and everytime I run dart run slang, I have to run dart format . and commit the changes otherwise my CI build is broken.

There is no way to exclude file in Dart formatter (yet) dart-lang/dart_style#864 so having generated code properly formatted like code gen packages do would be great.

To repro:

• Clone the slang repo
• Run cd slang/example
• Run flutter pub get
• Run dart format .
• Run git diff 👉 There are some changes that shouldn't be here.

[Tienisto]

A temporary workaround is to remove the generated file inside the CI before running dart format .. This essentially ignores the file as it doesn't exist anymore.

Integrating source_gen requires a lot of effort so it is unlikely in the near future.

[ngoc-quoc-huynh]

Having the same problem. Would wish this feature to be implemented.