What's the canonical vi setting for Python indentation

Malcolm Tredinnick malcolmt at smart.net.au
Tue Nov 30 19:17:51 EST 1999


On Tue, Nov 30, 1999 at 11:46:10PM +0000, Sean Blakey wrote:
> I don't know about canonical, but I have the following in my .vimrc
> set expandtab	"Turn's tabs into spaces
> set hardtabs=4	"Make tabs 4 spaces wide
> set tabstop=4
> set shiftwidth=4	"For use with << and >>

I tend to avoid 'set expandtab' to save typing. If I want to back out from one
indentation level to the previous one, it takes a single BackSpace to do so.
If I am using the 'expandtab' setting, it takes four keystrokes (these things
matter to me). Of course, I am also using the 'autoindent' setting (but, then
again, doesn't everybody in vim?).

To avoid making this a complete "me too" post, I'll point out that the "retab"
command is useful at some points, too. After I've edited a program to more or
less completeness, if I'm going to email it or print it, I will do
   :se et
   :1,$ret

You can go back the other way by doing
   :se noet
   :1,$ret!   <--- Changing sequences of spaces back to tabs

This way I get the best of both worlds -- efficient typing speeds, but
something that doesn't rely on the receiver's (printer or email adressee) tab
settings to look the same as my on-screen copy.

Cheers,
Malcolm Tredinnick

-- 
42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot





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