SOQL Style Guidelnes - Large SELECT Clause

The convention I adopt when selecting many fields is to:

• Put the SELECT clause on its own line
• Indent each line in the actual fields by 1 tab/4 spaces
• Generally put as many fields as possible on one line without overrunning 80/100/120 according to line length preference
• Put each sub-query on its own line
• I also find it's best to put each clause on its own line, including WHERE and all its sub-clauses, GROUP BY, LIMIT, etc.

Example

List<MyObject__c> records = [
    SELECT
        Field1__c, Field2__c, Field3__c,
        Field4__c, Field5__c, Field6__c,
        (SELECT Field__c FROM Children1__c),
        (SELECT Field__c FROM Children2__c)
    FROM MyObject__c
    WHERE Condition1
    AND Condition2
    GROUP BY Field1__c
    ORDER BY Field1__c
    LIMIT 1000
];

That said, your format shouldn't really matter, and I've found getting hung up on this stuff does not make me a better programmer or colleague during peer review. The above is developed 100% based on my personal preference, and there are many other valid approaches.

---

Generally I try to take up as few lines as possible without making any individual line excessively long. So I relax the one-lining to some extent based on that. Some other formats that litter my own codebase:

List<MyObject__c> records = [SELECT SingleField__c FROM MyObject__c];
for (MyObject__c record : [
    SELECT Field1__c, Field2__c, Field3__c, Field4__c
    FROM MyObject WHERE Field5__c = :value
    ORDER BY Field1__c DESC
]) // do stuff

While this remains open, I'll extend it to include how static SOQL fits with other code elements and offer this as an example:

for (Diagnosis__c d : [
        select Id, MedicalCodeType__c, Journal__c
        from Diagnosis__c 
        where Journal__c in :journals
        and Id not in :exclusions
        ]) {
    // ...
}

where the main point is that the major structural elements of the SOQL are left clear of other language tokens and separated by line feeds. The double indent implies a continuation of an element to differentiate that from a new block.

Personally not fond of capitalizing in SOQL as that requires better keyboard skills than I have to do consistently and quickly.

(This style of for loop avoids the need for a variable to hold the list - often not needed - and for big queries is kinder on heap usage.)