Format - Indent and Comments

Trying to get the following code:

	Code:
	select * from dbo.table1 ag --My First Comment inner join dbo.table2 cc on 1 = 1 --My Second Comment inner join dbo.table3 cn on 1 = 1

to format as:

	Code:
	select * from dbo.table1 ag --My First Comment inner join dbo.table2 cc on 1 = 1 --My Second Comment inner join dbo.table3 cn on 1 = 1

Instead, I get:

	Code:
	select * from dbo.table1 ag --My First Comment inner join join dbo.table2 cc on 1 = 1 --My Second Comment inner join dbo.table3 cn on 1 = 1

My template is:

	Code:
	SELECT ... AS ... ,... = ... FROM ... AS ... ,... ... INNER JOIN ... ON ... = ... AND ... WHERE ... = ... AND ... OR ... GROUP BY ... ,... HAVING ... ,... ORDER BY ... ,...

Any ideas will be greatly appreciated!!!

Would you please attach a screenshot demonstrating what you want to get as a result of the formatting? You can use "add image to post" link to do that.

When a web page is displayed in a browser, spaces between words are ignored and collapsed making it hard to understand how keywords should be offset.

Excellent suggestion. Please see the attached image.

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I'm not sure if empty lines can be added this way in middle of a formatted SQL statement. I will consult with the developers and get back to you on this.

What about getting a blank line before the second "inner join" and getting it to align to the left? The actual format I received is attached:

Thanks! I look forward to your response regarding getting the comments to align.

I'm still playing with this. It seems that the formatter produces the required result when comments aren't between lines

	Code:
	SELECT * FROM dbo.table1 ag INNER JOIN dbo.table2 cc --My First Comment ON 1 = 1 INNER JOIN dbo.table3 cn --My Second Comment ON 1 = 1

But when comments are between joins, it treats them as part of the expression, moving them along ON and causing side effects.

Basically keywords provide anchors for the formatting pattern. Everything else (non-keywords) is treated as expressions handled and positioned as specified by location of (,,,) placeholders. The formatter doesn't treat comments within formatting pattern as some special elements.

We must be getting different results. When I remove the comments, the second inner join is not left aligned and I don' t get the desired blank line between the joins.

I seem to recall a place to add keywords. Could a comment be added as a keyword?

I'm running 4.1.8. Which version are you running?

Here is what I found out from developers. Empty lines are ok and will be inserted as specified in the formatting pattern. Comments entered on separate lines within the statement text are not ok. Comments should either be entered before or after the statement or follow non-empty lines. Such in-line comments are treated as part of the SQL code just as all other non-keywords within the statement.

No, comments are not fixed elements and cannot be entered as keywords.

Not sure why...but...changing the template from "inner join" to "join" fixed the issue.