Comments on: Fix Python source code to use spaces instead of tabs

By: Ken Arnold

Ken Arnold — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 19:25:53 +0000

Also check out reindent (http://pypi.python.org/pypi/Reindent/0.1.0). Can run on a whole directory tree at once, and fixes inconsistent indentation.

By: Swaroop C H

Swaroop C H — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 12:34:03 +0000

Just for completeness sake, this can be done in Vim using:

:set tabstop=4 ” set spacing of 4
:set expandtab ” instruct to expand tabs to spaces
:1,$retab! ” replace existing tabs with spaces in the whole file

By: hachaboob

hachaboob — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 11:17:45 +0000

Why would anyone untab stuff? Tabs are the best.

By: Richard Lopes

Richard Lopes — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 05:17:08 +0000

Hi,

And what if you prefer tab formatted files ?
Is there an equivalent to translate spaces into tabs ?
Nowadays you can define how much spaces a tab translates into in your favourite editor.

By: Ross Poulton

Ross Poulton — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 04:50:23 +0000

Doh! Formatting messed that up.

Try:

:%s/^V^I/ /g

Again, just 4 spaces between the 2nd and 3rd slashes.

By: Ross Poulton

Ross Poulton — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 04:49:31 +0000

FWIW, to do that in vim you would use the command:

:%s// /g

Instead of typing , just press the ‘tab’ key (or press ^V^I) . The bit between the 2nd and 3rd ‘/’ marks is just 4 spaces.

By: AJ

AJ — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 04:48:24 +0000

If you have access to command-line programs in the Unix tradition, the one that expands out tabs is called ‘expand’ and has an option -t to set the tab-width (or it may specify an explicit list of the tab stop columns to use instead).

By: Max Battcher

Max Battcher — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 04:30:11 +0000

Oh, and in my experience in Vim :set et! will retab the document, but there is also the :retab command to explicitly do that as well.

By: Max Battcher

Max Battcher — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 04:25:32 +0000

In Vim:

:set ts=4
:set et!

You can also use the long names tabstop and expand-tab. You may also want to update shiftwidth (sw) and soft tabstop (sts) to the same value as you choose for tabstop.