Supporting EditorConfig for your language service
Applies to: 
Visual Studio 
Visual Studio for Mac
Note
This article applies to Visual Studio 2017. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here
EditorConfig files enable you to describe common text editor options, such as indent size, on a per-project basis. To learn more about Visual Studio's support for EditorConfig files, see Create portable editor settings using EditorConfig.
In most cases when you implement a Visual Studio language service, no additional work is needed to support EditorConfig universal properties. The core editor automatically discovers and reads the .editorconfig file when users open files, and it sets the appropriate text buffer and view options. However, for edits such as tabs and spaces, some language services opt to use an appropriate contextual text view option rather than using global settings. In these cases, the language service must be updated to support EditorConfig files.
Following are the changes that are needed to update a language service to support EditorConfig files, by replacing a global language-specific option with a contextual option:
Indent style
| Language-specific options | Contextual options |
|---|---|
| Microsoft.VisualStudio.TextManager.Interop.LANGPREFERENCES.fInsertTabs Microsoft.VisualStudio.Package.LanguagePreferences.InsertTabs |
!textBufferOptions.GetOptionValue(DefaultOptions.ConvertTabsToSpacesOptionId) !textView.Options.GetOptionValue(DefaultOptions.ConvertTabsToSpacesOptionId) |
Indent size
| Language-specific options | Contextual options |
|---|---|
| Microsoft.VisualStudio.TextManager.Interop.LANGPREFERENCES.uIndentSize Microsoft.VisualStudio.Package.LanguagePreferences.InsertTabs.IndentSize |
textBufferOptions.GetOptionValue(DefaultOptions.IndentSizeOptionId) textView.Options.GetOptionValue(DefaultOptions.IndentSizeOptionId) |
Tab size
| Language-specific options | Contextual options |
|---|---|
| Microsoft.VisualStudio.TextManager.Interop.LANGPREFERENCES.uTabSize Microsoft.VisualStudio.Package.LanguagePreferences.InsertTabs.TabSize |
textBufferOptions.GetOptionValue(DefaultOptions.TabSizeOptionId) textView.Options.GetOptionValue(DefaultOptions.TabSizeOptionId) |