operator alignment in WHERE clauses

[Harvey Kravis]

It would be really cool if the Beautifier could have preferences that would align operators in WHERE clauses. It would make the code much more readable. Here's an example:

SELECT rep_id
      FROM sales
     WHERE country_code = 'USA'
       AND state <> 'MA';

would become

    SELECT rep_id
      FROM sales
     WHERE country_code  = 'USA'
       AND state        <> 'MA';

Bigger WHERE clauses easily accentuate the problem.

I realize this could be quite a challenge, but I bet you could find a way to make it happen. You'd have to deal with operators of different sizes and figuring out how to justify the operator.

If this cannot be done then a good alternative would be to allow us to preserve our WHERE clauses and we'll type in the alignment we want. When I say 'preserve' I'm referring to the tabbing and spacing related to columns and operators, not logical operators like AND/OR, and the indentation of the WHERE clause relative the rest of the statement.

 

[Marco Kalter]

I have added this to the list of enhancement requests.