vim - what's a smarttab?

[7stud]

On Sep 24, 4:49 am, Marco <ma... at yafd.de> wrote:
>
> > Alternatively, what is a smarttab?
>
> in VIM type :help smarttab and you'll see the following:
>

Thanks!  I spent an hour hunting around on google with no success. :(

Another question if you don't mind.  I'm using vim 6.2, and I am
trying to setup vim to use different tab sizes based on different file
types.  I've searched around, and as far as I can tell, this should
work:

filetype indent on

Somehow that is supposed to let vim decide what type of file is being
edited.   But, it doesn't work for me.  Is there a list of file types
vim can recognize?  This is what my ~/.vimrc file looks like:

"python settings:
set tabstop=4              "4 space tab
set shiftwidth=4           "The amount to block indent when using <
and >
set smarttab               "Uses shiftwidth instead of tabstop at
start of lines
set expandtab              "Replaces a <TAB> with spaces--more
portable
set softtabstop=4          "Causes backspace to delete 4 spaces =
converted <TAB>

"general settings:
filetype indent on         "new in vim 6.0+; file type specific
indenting
set nu                     "line numbers on (set nonu)
syntax on                  "turns on syntax highlighting