Why does my python formatter add blank lines before and after function definitions?

Question

My code is automatically formatted by the formatter, and it adds blank lines that I do not want. This happens while using both autopep8 and black. This is my code:

dict_n = {}
def new_dash():
    new_list = input("do something ").split(",")
    for i in range(len(new_list)):
        # dict_n[new_list[i]] = [i]
        dict_n[i] = new_list[i]
    print(dict_n)
new_dash()

which gets formatted to:

dict_n = {}


def new_dash():
    new_list = input("do something ").split(",")
    for i in range(len(new_list)):
        # dict_n[new_list[i]] = [i]
        dict_n[i] = new_list[i]
    print(dict_n)


new_dash()

Is there a way I can prevent the extra lines being added automatically by the formatter, possibly by editing the settings.json file in VSCode?

Answer 1

First of all, this is a formatting standard, for the sake of code specification and code readability, etc. Generally, it is not recommended to change it.

If you really want to change, the following is a solution, but it can only remove the blank lines above. To add the following settings in settings.json,

    "python.formatting.provider": "black",
    "python.formatting.blackArgs": [
        "--skip-source-first-line",
    ],

See more about this settings here.