idflint is a linter for EnergyPlus input files. idflint checks the entire input file for mistakes that would normally be caught when running the simulation.

idflint was born out of the frustration of wasting time waiting for an EnergyPlus simulation to run for minutes before a cryptic error occurs, in which a comma in the idf file was missing.

idflint aims to speed up development and debugging time. It does this by providing instant feedback about the validity of the complete input file without worrying about the energy calculations themselves. It is heavily inspired by other linting tools such as ESLint.

At it's core, idflint is a command-line application that takes an idf file as input and prints errors and warning to the standard output. This allows idflint to be integrated into numerous workflows, pipelines, or wrapper programs.

The simplest way to use idflint to call the program from a shell (bash, cmd.exe, PowerShell, fish, etc.) like so:

idflint in.idf

Each error or warning will print as a single line to the standard output with the format {line num}:{column num} {error message}.