prettier <file> without --write option does not ignore what's in .prettierignore

When I run this:

prettier --config .prettierrc.json '**'

it echoes a lot of stuff to stdout, for files that are ignored by .prettierignore. It should ignore what’s in .prettierignore when the --write option is not used.

[thorn0]

Not having --write or --check means outputting the result to stdout. If a file formatter, having been asked to format a file and to return the result to stdout, returns nothing, the consumer (e.g. an editor integration that uses the formatter via its CLI) has to suppose that the formatting result is the empty string (see https://github.com/prettier/prettier/issues/3590). So, imagine: the user invokes the “Format” command in their editor, and the editor suddenly deletes the whole content of the file, which was supposed to be ignored by that formatter! Would you call this behavior respecting .prettierignore? That’s why, if a file is ignored, Prettier outputs it as is instead of printing nothing. It doesn’t disrespect .prettierignore at all, as you can see. That’s just the way it respects it.

Now, what does this all have to do with globs, you ask? That’s a good question. It’s difficult for me to think of a use case where multiple files matched by a glob would need to be formatted and output to stdout. I wonder whether anybody actually uses Prettier to format multiple files at once and print the concatenated result to stdout. It seems like you, @ORESoftware and @cdaringe, actually do this though. I second @lydell’s curiosity, what for?

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