Why is PointerAlignment not applied in clang-format?

I would like to tell the autoformatter in VS Code to align asterisks for pointer declaration (and also ampersands for references) to the left.

When I create a .clang-format file with all the default options with the command clang-format -style=llvm -dump-config > .clang-format, and change the options PointerAlignment to Left, asterisks and ampersands still get aligned to the right.

The configuration from the command, with my modification on PointerAlignment looks like this:

---
Language: Cpp
# BasedOnStyle:  LLVM
AccessModifierOffset: -4
AlignAfterOpenBracket: Align
AlignArrayOfStructures: None
AlignConsecutiveAssignments:
  Enabled: false
  AcrossEmptyLines: false
  AcrossComments: false
  AlignCompound: false
  PadOperators: true
AlignConsecutiveBitFields:
  Enabled: false
  AcrossEmptyLines: false
  AcrossComments: false
  AlignCompound: false
  PadOperators: false
AlignConsecutiveDeclarations:
  Enabled: false
  AcrossEmptyLines: false
  AcrossComments: false
  AlignCompound: false
  PadOperators: false
AlignConsecutiveMacros:
  Enabled: false
  AcrossEmptyLines: false
  AcrossComments: false
  AlignCompound: false
  PadOperators: false
AlignEscapedNewlines: Right
AlignOperands: Align
AlignTrailingComments: true
AllowAllArgumentsOnNextLine: true
AllowAllParametersOfDeclarationOnNextLine: true
AllowShortEnumsOnASingleLine: true
AllowShortBlocksOnASingleLine: Never
AllowShortCaseLabelsOnASingleLine: false
AllowShortFunctionsOnASingleLine: All
AllowShortLambdasOnASingleLine: All
AllowShortIfStatementsOnASingleLine: false
AllowShortLoopsOnASingleLine: false
AlwaysBreakAfterDefinitionReturnType: None
AlwaysBreakAfterReturnType: None
AlwaysBreakBeforeMultilineStrings: false
AlwaysBreakTemplateDeclarations: MultiLine
AttributeMacros:
  - __capability
BinPackArguments: true
BinPackParameters: true
BraceWrapping:
  AfterCaseLabel: false
  AfterClass: false
  AfterControlStatement: Never
  AfterEnum: false
  AfterFunction: false
  AfterNamespace: false
  AfterObjCDeclaration: false
  AfterStruct: false
  AfterUnion: false
  AfterExternBlock: false
  BeforeCatch: false
  BeforeElse: false
  BeforeLambdaBody: false
  BeforeWhile: false
  IndentBraces: false
  SplitEmptyFunction: true
  SplitEmptyRecord: true
  SplitEmptyNamespace: true
BreakBeforeBinaryOperators: None
BreakBeforeConceptDeclarations: Always
BreakBeforeBraces: Allman
BreakBeforeInheritanceComma: false
BreakInheritanceList: BeforeColon
BreakBeforeTernaryOperators: true
BreakConstructorInitializersBeforeComma: false
BreakConstructorInitializers: BeforeColon
BreakAfterJavaFieldAnnotations: false
BreakStringLiterals: true
ColumnLimit: 0
CommentPragmas: "^ IWYU pragma:"
QualifierAlignment: Leave
CompactNamespaces: false
ConstructorInitializerIndentWidth: 4
ContinuationIndentWidth: 4
Cpp11BracedListStyle: true
DeriveLineEnding: true
DerivePointerAlignment: false
DisableFormat: false
EmptyLineAfterAccessModifier: Never
EmptyLineBeforeAccessModifier: LogicalBlock
ExperimentalAutoDetectBinPacking: false
PackConstructorInitializers: BinPack
BasedOnStyle: ""
ConstructorInitializerAllOnOneLineOrOnePerLine: false
AllowAllConstructorInitializersOnNextLine: true
FixNamespaceComments: true
ForEachMacros:
  - foreach
  - Q_FOREACH
  - BOOST_FOREACH
IfMacros:
  - KJ_IF_MAYBE
IncludeBlocks: Preserve
IncludeCategories:
  - Regex: '^"(llvm|llvm-c|clang|clang-c)/'
    Priority: 2
    SortPriority: 0
    CaseSensitive: false
  - Regex: '^(<|"(gtest|gmock|isl|json)/)'
    Priority: 3
    SortPriority: 0
    CaseSensitive: false
  - Regex: ".*"
    Priority: 1
    SortPriority: 0
    CaseSensitive: false
IncludeIsMainRegex: "(Test)?$"
IncludeIsMainSourceRegex: ""
IndentAccessModifiers: false
IndentCaseLabels: false
IndentCaseBlocks: false
IndentGotoLabels: true
IndentPPDirectives: None
IndentExternBlock: AfterExternBlock
IndentRequiresClause: true
IndentWidth: 2
IndentWrappedFunctionNames: false
InsertBraces: false
InsertTrailingCommas: None
JavaScriptQuotes: Leave
JavaScriptWrapImports: true
KeepEmptyLinesAtTheStartOfBlocks: true
LambdaBodyIndentation: Signature
MacroBlockBegin: ""
MacroBlockEnd: ""
MaxEmptyLinesToKeep: 1
NamespaceIndentation: All
ObjCBinPackProtocolList: Auto
ObjCBlockIndentWidth: 2
ObjCBreakBeforeNestedBlockParam: true
ObjCSpaceAfterProperty: false
ObjCSpaceBeforeProtocolList: true
PenaltyBreakAssignment: 2
PenaltyBreakBeforeFirstCallParameter: 19
PenaltyBreakComment: 300
PenaltyBreakFirstLessLess: 120
PenaltyBreakOpenParenthesis: 0
PenaltyBreakString: 1000
PenaltyBreakTemplateDeclaration: 10
PenaltyExcessCharacter: 1000000
PenaltyReturnTypeOnItsOwnLine: 60
PenaltyIndentedWhitespace: 0
PointerAlignment: Left
PPIndentWidth: -1
ReferenceAlignment: Pointer
ReflowComments: true
RemoveBracesLLVM: false
RequiresClausePosition: OwnLine
SeparateDefinitionBlocks: Leave
ShortNamespaceLines: 1
SortIncludes: CaseSensitive
SortJavaStaticImport: Before
SortUsingDeclarations: true
SpaceAfterCStyleCast: false
SpaceAfterLogicalNot: false
SpaceAfterTemplateKeyword: true
SpaceBeforeAssignmentOperators: true
SpaceBeforeCaseColon: false
SpaceBeforeCpp11BracedList: false
SpaceBeforeCtorInitializerColon: true
SpaceBeforeInheritanceColon: true
SpaceBeforeParens: ControlStatements
SpaceBeforeParensOptions:
  AfterControlStatements: true
  AfterForeachMacros: true
  AfterFunctionDefinitionName: false
  AfterFunctionDeclarationName: false
  AfterIfMacros: true
  AfterOverloadedOperator: false
  AfterRequiresInClause: false
  AfterRequiresInExpression: false
  BeforeNonEmptyParentheses: false
SpaceAroundPointerQualifiers: Default
SpaceBeforeRangeBasedForLoopColon: true
SpaceInEmptyBlock: false
SpaceInEmptyParentheses: false
SpacesBeforeTrailingComments: 1
SpacesInAngles: Never
SpacesInConditionalStatement: false
SpacesInContainerLiterals: true
SpacesInCStyleCastParentheses: false
SpacesInLineCommentPrefix:
  Minimum: 1
  Maximum: -1
SpacesInParentheses: false
SpacesInSquareBrackets: false
SpaceBeforeSquareBrackets: false
BitFieldColonSpacing: Both
Standard: Latest
StatementAttributeLikeMacros:
  - Q_EMIT
StatementMacros:
  - Q_UNUSED
  - QT_REQUIRE_VERSION
TabWidth: 8
UseCRLF: false
UseTab: Never
WhitespaceSensitiveMacros:
  - STRINGIZE
  - PP_STRINGIZE
  - BOOST_PP_STRINGIZE
  - NS_SWIFT_NAME
  - CF_SWIFT_NAME
---

But when I use this minimal config based on the LLVM style, it works!

BasedOnStyle: LLVM
UseTab: Never
IndentWidth: 4
TabWidth: 4
BreakBeforeBraces: Allman
AllowShortIfStatementsOnASingleLine: false
IndentCaseLabels: false
ColumnLimit: 0
AccessModifierOffset: -4
NamespaceIndentation: All
PointerAlignment: Left

What am I missing? How can this be, when default values should be the same in both scenarios? I even applied all those overrides to the original one.

Is it a bug in VS Code?

Currently enabled extensions are:

• clangd
• GitLens
• PHP Intelephense
• Prettier - Code formatter (not in use in this case, see my settings.json)

My settings.json looks like this:

{
  "git.autofetch": true,
  "editor.formatOnSave": true,
  "editor.defaultFormatter": "esbenp.prettier-vscode",
  "[php]": {
    "editor.defaultFormatter": "bmewburn.vscode-intelephense-client"
  },
  "git.confirmSync": false,
  "editor.minimap.enabled": false,
  "emmet.showExpandedAbbreviation": "inMarkupAndStylesheetFilesOnly",
  "emmet.triggerExpansionOnTab": true,
  "editor.codeActionsOnSave": {
    "source.organizeImports": true,
    "source.addMissingImports": true
  },
  "editor.hover.delay": 1000,
  "intelephense.stubs": [
    "apache",
    "bcmath",
    "bz2",
    "calendar",
    "com_dotnet",
    "Core",
    "ctype",
    "curl",
    "date",
    "dba",
    "dom",
    "enchant",
    "exif",
    "FFI",
    "fileinfo",
    "filter",
    "fpm",
    "ftp",
    "gd",
    "gettext",
    "gmp",
    "hash",
    "iconv",
    "imap",
    "intl",
    "json",
    "ldap",
    "libxml",
    "mbstring",
    "meta",
    "mysqli",
    "oci8",
    "odbc",
    "openssl",
    "pcntl",
    "pcre",
    "PDO",
    "pdo_ibm",
    "pdo_mysql",
    "pdo_pgsql",
    "pdo_sqlite",
    "pgsql",
    "Phar",
    "posix",
    "pspell",
    "readline",
    "Reflection",
    "session",
    "shmop",
    "SimpleXML",
    "snmp",
    "soap",
    "sockets",
    "sodium",
    "SPL",
    "sqlite3",
    "standard",
    "superglobals",
    "sysvmsg",
    "sysvsem",
    "sysvshm",
    "tidy",
    "tokenizer",
    "xml",
    "xmlreader",
    "xmlrpc",
    "xmlwriter",
    "xsl",
    "Zend OPcache",
    "zip",
    "zlib",
    "wordpress"
  ],
  "editor.folding": false,
  "typescript.updateImportsOnFileMove.enabled": "always",
  "vscode_custom_css.imports": [""],
  "vscode_custom_css.policy": true,
  "javascript.updateImportsOnFileMove.enabled": "always",
  "files.exclude": {
    "**/.classpath": true,
    "**/.factorypath": true,
    "**/.project": true,
    "**/.settings": true
  },
  "gitlens.views.repositories.files.layout": "list",
  "workbench.startupEditor": "none",
  "explorer.confirmDragAndDrop": false,
  "editor.suggestSelection": "first",
  "vsintellicode.modify.editor.suggestSelection": "automaticallyOverrodeDefaultValue",
  "[cpp]": {
    "editor.defaultFormatter": "llvm-vs-code-extensions.vscode-clangd",
    "editor.codeActionsOnSave": {
      "source.organizeImports": false,
      "source.addMissingImports": true
    }
  },
  "security.workspace.trust.untrustedFiles": "open",
  "clangd.path": "/home/xxxxxx/.config/Code - OSS/User/globalStorage/llvm-vs-code-extensions.vscode-clangd/install/14.0.3/clangd_14.0.3/bin/clangd",
  "workbench.colorTheme": "Shades of Purple",
  "window.menuBarVisibility": "toggle",
  "java.completion.filteredTypes": ["java.awt.List", "com.sun.*"],
  /* "[java]": {
    "editor.defaultFormatter": "redhat.java"
  }, */
  "java.sources.organizeImports.staticStarThreshold": 3,
  "window.zoomLevel": 1,
  "diffEditor.ignoreTrimWhitespace": false,
  "[c]": {
    "editor.defaultFormatter": "llvm-vs-code-extensions.vscode-clangd"
  },
  "files.refactoring.autoSave": false,
  "debug.javascript.defaultRuntimeExecutable": {
    "pwa-node": "node"
  },
  "telemetry.telemetryLevel": "off"
}

I think, I found the answer.

It seems, that the configuration breaks if an error was found. Everything below the falsy line seems not to get applied.

I did not figure out, why the output of the command clang-format -style=llvm -dump-config > .clang-format included errors. But for now, I am happy with my minimal override "BasedOnStyle: LLVM" config.