Re: TAB character

[Benjamin Rutt <rutt+news@cis.ohio-state.edu>]

Stirling Olson <seo@foraker.com> writes:

> How can I make the TAB key just enter a TAB character and never have
> that TAB character turn into spaces?
>
> While editing .java files and other files hitting the TAB key seems to
> follow some indenting conventions that I don't understand and don't
> prefer.  It often enters spaces and sometimes won't even let me enter a
> further tab.  I just want to have a tab character entered in the buffer
> when I hit TAB and when I backspace or delete a tab in the buffer I
> don't want it to turn into spaces.

In this case, I think you want to pick a number (like 4) that you want
to use for the distance between your tab stops.

Then, I believe you need to synchronize several variables based off of
that number:

(add-hook 'java-mode-hook
          (lambda ()
            (setq tab-width 4)
            (setq tab-stop-list '(4 8 12 16 20 24 28 32 36 40)
            (setq c-basic-offset 4))))

Future TAB presses should indent your code only to the tab stop list,
and therefore no spaces will be inserted.
-- 
Benjamin