Prettier is a fantastic tool for maintaining consistent code formatting in your projects, making your code more readable and professional. If you're wondering how you can get Prettier to parse files recursively, you've come to the right place. When working on a larger codebase with multiple nested folders, parsing files recursively ensures that every file is formatted in a consistent and uniform way. This can save you a lot of time and effort, as you won't have to format each file individually.
To get Prettier to parse files recursively, you can use the `--write` flag along with file glob patterns. Glob patterns allow you to specify which files to include or exclude when running Prettier. You can use wildcards like `**` to match all files within subdirectories. Let's walk through the steps on how to achieve this.
First, open your terminal and navigate to the root directory of your project where you have Prettier installed. Then, you can run the following command:
npx prettier --write "**/*.js"In this command, `npx prettier` tells your system to run the Prettier command, `--write` flag automatically formats the files, and `**/*.js` is the file glob pattern that specifies to match all JavaScript files recursively within all directories.
If you have files with different extensions like `*.js`, `*.jsx`, or `*.ts`, you can include them by separating the patterns with commas:
npx prettier --write "**/*.{js,jsx,ts}"Prettier also supports other file types like CSS, HTML, JSON, and more. You can include them in the glob pattern based on your project's needs.
Additionally, if you want to exclude specific files or directories from being formatted by Prettier, you can use the `!` operator in the glob pattern like this:
npx prettier --write "/*.js" "!/node_modules"In this example, we exclude the `node_modules` directory from being formatted by Prettier.
By utilizing file glob patterns and the `--write` flag, Prettier can parse files recursively within your project, ensuring consistent code formatting across all files. This automation saves you valuable time, reduces manual effort, and helps maintain a clean codebase.
Remember, it's always a good practice to run Prettier on your codebase regularly to keep it tidy and consistent. With these steps, you can easily set up Prettier to parse files recursively and enjoy the benefits of automated code formatting in your projects. Happy coding!