Should you edit someone else's code in a question?

Question

I have seen several (suggested) reviews lately, where someone edits the code in the original poster's question. Should such edits be allowed?

The edits in question are mostly minor. Some add spaces to the code to increase readability, others fix syntax errors in the posted code.

Answer 1

No

Personally, I think that they should usually NOT be allowed for questions.

This site is about code reviews. Readability is an important issue in code reviews, as are syntax errors. Editing the post is not constructive. It is much more helpful to leave a comment or answer that points out the shortcomings.

If the code in the question is edited, other reviewers will (normally) not see these issues with the code, and therefore can't comment on them.

Explicitly pointing out issues makes them more apparent to the original poster, and he or she will learn by doing when fixing the issues themselves.

As @200_success points out, replacing tabs with spaces is probably okay, but only to help the present the code as the author originally intended, not to improve it (i.e. it is OK to fix formatting issues that are related to MarkDown, not the actual code).

Answer 2

Unlike Stack Overflow, at Code Review we are interested not only in a solution that works, but a solution that is well expressed as code. Therefore, we review all facets of the code, including whitespace. If you feel that the code in the question is improperly formatted, do not silently edit the question, but rather write an answer that addresses the problem.

An example of such an answer:

• Bad practices in this procedure to calculate player statistics

That said, I would make a narrow exception: it's OK to fix poor formatting in a novice user's question if there is clear evidence it is obviously unintentional. Usually, these formatting errors result from copying-and-pasting code into the Stack Exchange Markdown editor, and they fall into three types:

1. The entire code is not indented at all, and therefore does not even appear to be a code block.
2. The entire code block is indented by too many levels.

3. The user has mixed Space and Tab characters. Markdown treats both four leading spaces and one leading tab as code block line. Therefore,

   SpaceSpaceSpaceSpaceint main() {⏎

   Tabreturn 0;⏎

   SpaceSpaceSpaceSpace}⏎

   would be rendered as

   int main() {
   return 0;
   }
   

   making the code appear to be unindented or haphazardly indented, even though it looked fine in the author's IDE that had eight-character-wide hard tabstops.

Answer 3

Update

Given the comments I must not be explaining my point clearly.

1. Good formatting is crucial to the readability of code (and sometimes syntax).
2. Readable code with correct syntax is significantly easier to review.
3. Everyone wins when there are more reviews.

So go ahead and critique the formatting in your answer, but please reformat the code in the question to encourage more reviews.

Original Answer

I feel editing to fix formatting is a net win for the community. Doing so makes it easier for other reviewers and provides a good example for the asker. While it may benefit the asker to do it themselves, they'll have plenty of opportunities later. Having a good example gives them something to model.

Additionally, I'm more likely to give a review if I don't have to paste it into my IDE to format it. And others reading the question won't be distracted by hard-to-read code. It also allows lurkers to help clean up the site without feeling pressured into a more detailed post.

Finally, I'm not too fond of any review that consists solely of a rebuke to format the code. Feel free to edit the question and include this in your answer, but don't make formatting your entire answer.

While consistent and clear formatting is very important, it's also quite trivial to pick up and point out. Let's not make this the primary focus of this site.