Request for Formatting Style Preference Option: [project.scripts] vs [project] scripts.*

[zappuf]

Following up on Issue #293, I’d like to propose an enhancement:

While it's clear that PEP 621 does not enforce a specific TOML layout and that [project.scripts] and [project] scripts.* are semantically equivalent, it would be very useful if pyproject-fmt provided an optional configuration setting to prefer one formatting style over the other during formatting.

Specifically, it would be helpful to offer users the ability to:

• Prefer expanding [project.scripts] as a dedicated table (more readable and common in hand-written pyproject.toml files)
• Or, alternatively, prefer flattening into [project] scripts.* entries (current behavior)

Possible Implementation Ideas:

• A CLI flag (e.g., --prefer-expanded-tables)
• A configuration setting in pyproject.toml for pyproject-fmt
• Default behavior could remain unchanged if no preference is specified

Rationale:

• Improves readability and consistency for users who manually maintain pyproject.toml
• Reduces diffs when working across teams that expect a particular style
• Enhances user control without sacrificing compliance with PEP 621

Thanks for considering this! I’m happy to help test or contribute if needed.

[gaborbernat]

I am not sure what you mean by compliance with PEP 621, because given that that does not specify a specific style, we are already compliant. As for which is more common or readable, I think we'll need to agree to disagree. I actually did a poll about this a while back on Twitter and from like 100 answers it was 50-50 the distribution. I think this argument between one and another is really just a personal preference thing.

That being said I'm open to someone to create a pull request to support both styles. But I am not gonna do the work so guest contributions are welcome.