indent-region behavior with no region

indent-region behavior with no region

[chad]

Is there a functional or historical reason for indent-region's
behavior when no region is set, or is it simply accidental?

In looking at the newish emacs blog http://emacsredux.com/, I found
a suggestion to make it indent the buffer if called with no region,
which seemed like a reasonable choice.

Thanks in advance,
~Chad

Re: indent-region behavior with no region

[Jambunathan K]

chad <yandros@MIT.EDU> writes:

> Is there a functional or historical reason for indent-region's
> behavior when no region is set, or is it simply accidental?
>
> In looking at the newish emacs blog http://emacsredux.com/, I found
> a suggestion to make it indent the buffer if called with no region,
> which seemed like a reasonable choice.

Speaking for myself, 

I mark the current defun and indent it.  Sometimes, indenting the whole
buffer introduces whitespace changes in areas that is unrelated to my
specific edit.

> Thanks in advance,
> ~Chad