Indenting with spaces and tabs in Emacs Lisp

Indenting with spaces and tabs in Emacs Lisp

[Nicolas Petton]

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Hi,

I've seen that in simple.el indentation is inconsistent, sometimes using
spaces only and sometimes tabs and spaces.  Some files seem to have more
consistent indenting using tabs and spaces, though some other files use
only spaces.

I thought that the convention was to use the tabs + spaces style, was I
wrong?  I'm pretty sure this is documented somewhere, but I couldn't
find it.

Cheers,
Nico

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Re: Indenting with spaces and tabs in Emacs Lisp

[Robert Pluim]

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Nicolas Petton <nicolas@petton.fr> writes:

> Hi,
>
> I've seen that in simple.el indentation is inconsistent, sometimes using
> spaces only and sometimes tabs and spaces.  Some files seem to have more
> consistent indenting using tabs and spaces, though some other files use
> only spaces.
>
> I thought that the convention was to use the tabs + spaces style, was I
> wrong?  I'm pretty sure this is documented somewhere, but I couldn't
> find it.

From .dir-locals.el:

 (emacs-lisp-mode . ((indent-tabs-mode . nil)
                     (electric-quote-comment . nil)
                     (electric-quote-string . nil)))

(I couldn't find this documented either).

Robert

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Re: Indenting with spaces and tabs in Emacs Lisp

[Michael Albinus]

Robert Pluim <rpluim@gmail.com> writes:
Hi,

>> I've seen that in simple.el indentation is inconsistent, sometimes using
>> spaces only and sometimes tabs and spaces.  Some files seem to have more
>> consistent indenting using tabs and spaces, though some other files use
>> only spaces.
>>
>> I thought that the convention was to use the tabs + spaces style, was I
>> wrong?  I'm pretty sure this is documented somewhere, but I couldn't
>> find it.
>
> From .dir-locals.el:
>
>  (emacs-lisp-mode . ((indent-tabs-mode . nil)
>                      (electric-quote-comment . nil)
>                      (electric-quote-string . nil)))

This is valid for files edited in the Emacs source tree. If they are
merged from somewhere else, like the Tramp files, this doesn't apply.

> Robert

Best regards, Michael.

Re: Indenting with spaces and tabs in Emacs Lisp

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hello, Nico.

On Thu, Feb 28, 2019 at 09:38:07 +0100, Nicolas Petton wrote:
> Hi,

> I've seen that in simple.el indentation is inconsistent, sometimes using
> spaces only and sometimes tabs and spaces.  Some files seem to have more
> consistent indenting using tabs and spaces, though some other files use
> only spaces.

> I thought that the convention was to use the tabs + spaces style, was I
> wrong?  I'm pretty sure this is documented somewhere, but I couldn't
> find it.

I think the general understanding is that there is no consistent pattern
of spaces vs. tabs+spaces in effect, and that this is not an important
thing.

Way back in history, tabs+spaces was, I believe, universal, since it
saved on characters when the amount of RAM and disk space were a minute
fraction of today's.

I would ask, however, that a systematic attempt to convert to a
consistent spaces only is NOT made.  This fouls up diffs, giving the
impression of change where there is none.

> Cheers,
> Nico

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

Re: Indenting with spaces and tabs in Emacs Lisp

[Stefan Monnier]

> I think the general understanding is that there is no consistent pattern
> of spaces vs. tabs+spaces in effect, and that this is not an important
> thing.
>
> Way back in history, tabs+spaces was, I believe, universal, since it
> saved on characters when the amount of RAM and disk space were a minute
> fraction of today's.
>
> I would ask, however, that a systematic attempt to convert to a
> consistent spaces only is NOT made.  This fouls up diffs, giving the
> impression of change where there is none.

100% agreed.


        Stefan

Re: Indenting with spaces and tabs in Emacs Lisp

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Nicolas Petton <nicolas@petton.fr>
> Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2019 09:38:07 +0100
> 
> I've seen that in simple.el indentation is inconsistent, sometimes using
> spaces only and sometimes tabs and spaces.  Some files seem to have more
> consistent indenting using tabs and spaces, though some other files use
> only spaces.

We only fix whitespace when making some real changes, that's why you
see inconsistent use of TABs in some Lisp files.