bug#8515: M-x indent-region should skip everything between <pre>-tags.

bug#8515: M-x indent-region should skip everything between <pre>-tags.

[Rob Browning]

(If possible, please preserve the 448563-forwarded address in any replies.)

The following bug report (or perhaps feature request) was filed with the
Debian tracker, and I wanted to ask your opinion about the issue.

Thanks

Juhapekka Tolvanen writes:

> You reproduce this bug this way:

> 1) Download this HTML-file:

> http://iki.fi/juhtolv/mswordmail.html

> or this:

> http://iki.fi/juhtolv/pelle.html

> 2) Open it with GNU Emacs. nXML-mode should be the major mode.

> 3) Check out, how text between <pre> -tags is not indented.

> 4) Paint whole buffer with key: Ctrl-x h

> 5) Give line-command called indent-region.

> 6) See, how everything between <pre> -tags became indented although it
> is not supposed to.

> Maybe this should be configurable option. Normal Tab-key pressing
> in the beginning of some line between <pre>-tags should cause some kind
> of indentation according to Tabs-vs-Spaces-settings.

-- 
Rob Browning
rlb @defaultvalue.org and @debian.org
GPG as of 2002-11-03 14DD 432F AE39 534D B592 F9A0 25C8 D377 8C7E 73A4

bug#8515: M-x indent-region should skip everything between <pre>-tags.

[Stefan Monnier]

> The following bug report (or perhaps feature request) was filed with the
> Debian tracker, and I wanted to ask your opinion about the issue.

The behavior of auto-indentation within things like <pre>...</pre> (or
here-docs in sh scripts, or strings in other languages, ...) is indeed
not perfect, is inconsistent between major modes, and moreover it's
always clear what is the best behavior.

I think what should happen is:
- indent-region should not modify those lines.
- indent-according-to-mode should not modify those lines either.
- indent-for-tab-command should behave as if in text-mode (i.e. call
  something like indent-relative).

Ideally, this should be recognized and treated as a case of "multiple
major modes" and you should even be able to specify what major mode
to use within the <pre>...</pre> region, so that the indentation there
can be better than text-mode's.
  

        Stefan

bug#8515: M-x indent-region should skip everything between <pre>-tags.

[Stefan Monnier]

> The behavior of auto-indentation within things like <pre>...</pre> (or
> here-docs in sh scripts, or strings in other languages, ...) is indeed
> not perfect, is inconsistent between major modes, and moreover it's
> always clear what is the best behavior.
^^^
not


        Stefan