When editing a shell-function with cursor behind "batch \" -- see code below -- RET inserts a newline and indents onto a strange big amount. It inserts 2 TABs followed by 4 spaces so "--eval" is at colon with "-p". Soo also attached foo1.png. BWT whitespace-mode is hardly readable from emacs -Q ------ #!/bin/sh foo1() { date; time -p emacs -Q -L . --batch \                                --eval "(message (emacs-version))" } foo1 ------ In GNU Emacs 28.0.92 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.24.32, cairo version 1.16.0)  of 2022-03-14 Windowing system distributor 'The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.12013000 System Description: Ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS Configured using:  'configure --with-json --with-modules --with-mailutils' Configured features: ACL CAIRO DBUS FREETYPE GIF GLIB GMP GNUTLS GSETTINGS HARFBUZZ JPEG JSON LIBOTF LIBSELINUX LIBXML2 MODULES NOTIFY INOTIFY PDUMPER PNG RSVG SECCOMP SOUND THREADS TIFF TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS X11 XDBE XIM XPM GTK2 ZLIB Important settings:   value of $LANG: de_DE.UTF-8   locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix Major mode: Shell-script Minor modes in effect:   shell-dirtrack-mode: t   sh-electric-here-document-mode: t   tooltip-mode: t   global-eldoc-mode: t   show-paren-mode: t   electric-indent-mode: t   mouse-wheel-mode: t   tool-bar-mode: t   menu-bar-mode: t   file-name-shadow-mode: t   global-font-lock-mode: t   font-lock-mode: t   blink-cursor-mode: t   auto-composition-mode: t   auto-encryption-mode: t   auto-compression-mode: t   line-number-mode: t   indent-tabs-mode: t   transient-mark-mode: t Load-path shadows: None found. Features: (shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug message rmc puny dired dired-loaddefs rfc822 mml mml-sec epa derived epg rfc6068 epg-config gnus-util rmail rmail-loaddefs auth-source cl-seq eieio eieio-core cl-macs eieio-loaddefs password-cache json map mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader sendmail rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mail-utils bug-reference find-func shortdoc text-property-search cl-extra seq byte-opt gv bytecomp byte-compile cconv pp cl-print thingatpt help-fns radix-tree help-mode shell pcomplete comint ansi-color ring time-date subr-x misearch multi-isearch vc-git diff-mode easy-mmode vc-dispatcher cl-loaddefs cl-lib vc-filewise vc-rcs sh-script smie executable iso-transl tooltip eldoc paren electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type elisp-mode mwheel term/x-win x-win term/common-win x-dnd tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list replace newcomment text-mode lisp-mode prog-mode register page tab-bar menu-bar rfn-eshadow isearch easymenu timer select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax font-core term/tty-colors frame minibuffer cl-generic cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean japanese eucjp-ms cp51932 hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese composite emoji-zwj charscript charprop case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev obarray cl-preloaded nadvice button loaddefs faces cus-face macroexp files window text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget hashtable-print-readable backquote threads dbusbind inotify dynamic-setting system-font-setting font-render-setting cairo move-toolbar gtk x-toolkit x multi-tty make-network-process emacs) Memory information: ((conses 16 181454 9932)  (symbols 48 31985 1)  (strings 32 75967 1843)  (string-bytes 1 1311753)  (vectors 16 21291)  (vector-slots 8 654402 21958)  (floats 8 78 52)  (intervals 56 1824 0)  (buffers 992 19))