CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonpycharmpep8
Samuel
Samuel

Reputation: 8895

Why does PyCharm use 120 Character Lines even though PEP8 Specifies 79?

PEP8 clearly specifies 79 characters, however, PyCharm defaults to 120 and gives me the warning "PEP8: line too long (... > 120 characters)".

Did previous versions of PEP8 use 120 and PyCharm not update its PEP8 checker? I couldn't find any previous versions of the PEP8 Guide, however, I can easily find previous version of the PEP8 Python scripts.

I'm starting a new Python project and I'm not sure which to use.

References:

http://legacy.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/

Upvotes: 58

Views: 49758

Answers (4)

phpjunkie
phpjunkie

Reputation: 171

You can change 120 character limit of PyCharm for both the Project and the Default schemes as seen in the image below.

PyCharm Settings

Upvotes: 2

Jon Kiparsky
Jon Kiparsky

Reputation: 7743

AFAIK, PEP8 has never allowed 120 characters, but not everyone follows PEP8. To answer your question: stay under 80 characters, both from common courtesy and good sense.

Upvotes: -4

munk
munk

Reputation: 12983

PyCharm is built on top of IntelliJ. IntelliJ has a default line length of 120 characters.

This is probably because you can't fit a common Java name like: @annotated public static MyObjectFactoryFactory enterpriseObjectFactoryFactoryBuilderPattern { in a mere 80 character line. (I'm poking fun, but Java names do tend to be longer by convention).

The pep8 checker is configurable, so you can specify a better max line length - like 79 characters.

The error is misleading because the pep8 checker formats the text with something like "PEP8: line too long(... > %s characters)" % max_line_setting. So it's using the pep8 checker, with a specific configuration, not claiming that pep8 specifies a 120 character line.

Upvotes: 70

Austin Heller
Austin Heller

Reputation: 320

If you want to remove the limit warning altogether you can take the following steps:

  1. In PyCharm, click File > Settings
  2. In the project settings section, click Editor > Inspections
  3. In the list that appears, expand Python
  4. Under Python, scroll down and click "PEP8 coding style violation"
  5. Click the + button next to "Ignore errors" in the bottom right
  6. Type out E501 and click Apply and/or OK

Sources:

Upvotes: 8

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