How to install clang-format on MinGW (Windows)?

Question

I tried searching with pacman -Ss for clang-format, git-clang-format, etc, but I'm not having any luck.

However, I have seen some references to it on some other websites, implying it may exist (or have existed) somewhere.

Answer 1

As utilities, clang-format and git-clang-format are available in several forms:

• As a part of clang.

[As noted by OP in the final comments below, and with OP's answer to their own question, these should be included with MSYS2/MingGW on Windows].

• As pre-compiled Python wheels for Linux and Windows available via pip (PyPI).

• As modules available for Node.js. On Windows, use the standard Windows installer to install Node.js. Otherwise, example Linux package manager commands for installing Node.js are here.

Python

For Python versions on Linux or Windows, you may wish to try:

python3 -m pip install clang-format 

Node.js

Assuming Node.js is installed, you can also get them both with:

npm install -g clang-format

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Note that on Windows, using the Node.js option seems to be the simplest solution for obtaining just clang-format and git-clang-format (without installing MinGW).

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Answer 2

You can get it as part of the LLVM compiler build for Windows. You can download it from https://llvm.org/builds/. Once installed, clang-format.exe can be found in C:\Program Files\LLVM\bin.

I know it's a bit heavy to install the whole compiler just to get the formatter, but yeah, it just feels safer compared to other sources, given that it's from LLVM itself.

Besides, the installer holds an archive that several tools (e.g. 7-Zip) can open. If you have downloaded the installer, but do not want to install the whole thing, extract the single executable from the archive under bin.

Answer 3

It turns out that MSYS2 already comes with clang installed, and clang comes with clang-format. As of my version of clang, I have clang-format 9.0.0 installed. it's possible much earlier versions of clang did not come with it installed.

Answer 4

I solved this problem by doing the following:

1. I opened MSYS2 MINGW64

2. I ran pacman -S clang and followed the prompts to install it.

3. I ran where clang-format to learn of its location (in my case it was C:\msys64\usr\bin\clang-format.exe)

4. I added its folder path (C:\msys64\usr\bin\) to Windows' user and system Path variable.

All shells could then find clang-format and after restarting it, VS Code knew about it too.

nb: it could be that clang maybe overkill just for this command - a better pacman command might be adequate here.

Answer 5

The clang package was not available in my MSYS2 installation by default, so I had to install it:

pacman -Sy --needed mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-clang

You can see where the binary is installed (to add to your PATH, if needed) with the command:

pacman -Ql mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-clang | grep bin/clang-format

The output should looks something like this:

mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-clang /ucrt64/bin/clang-format.exe