Try fiddling with c-set-style

http://www.phys.ufl.edu/docs/emacs/emacs_254.html

Here's a list of built in c-styles

http://www.delorie.com/gnu/docs/emacs/cc-mode_24.html

On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 8:05 AM, amit mehta <gmate.amit@gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm a complete n00b and hence please don't shower your wrath upon me.
> I'm finding it little difficult to use TABS in my 'C' programs. I've been a
> vim
> user till last week and have slowly started to migrate towards mighty
> emacs.
> In vim, I usually indent my code with tabs, where each tab stroke replaces
> the
> cursor by 8 columns, but in an emacs buffer, a tab stroke doesn't work this
> way by default. I did some text search and based on that, have added the
> following line under $HOME/.emacs:
>
> (setq indent-tabs-mode t)
>
> but this doesn't work(i mean, hitting the TAB key on my keyboard doesn't
> move forward the cursor to 8 columns to the right), so every time i need a
> TAB,
> I've to use C-q <tab>. this is overkill.
>
> Then I tried putting just this entry in $HOME/.emacs, but this too doesn't
> work
> (setq default-tab-width 8);
>
>
> Please help.
>
> -amit
>
>