How to fix Python indentation

Question

I have some Python code that have inconsistent indentation  There is a lot of mixture of tabs and spaces to make the matter even worse  and even space indentation is not preserved   The code works as expected  but it s difficult to maintain   How can I fix the indentation  like HTML Tidy  but for Python  without breaking the code

User · Answer

autopep8 -i script py Use autopep8 autopep8 automagically formats Python code to conform to the PEP 8 nullstyle guide  It uses the pep8 utility to determine what parts of the nullcode needs to be formatted  autopep8 is capable of fixing most of the nullformatting issues that can be reported by pep8  pip install autopep8 autopep8 script py      print only autopep8 -i script py   write file

User · Answer

I would reach for autopep8 to do this       see what changes it would make   autopep8 path to file py --select E101 E121 --diff      make these changes   autopep8 path to file py --select E101 E121 --in-place   Note  E101 and E121 are pep8 indentation  I think you can simply pass --select E1 to fix all indentation related issues - those starting with E1    You can apply this to your entire project using recursive flag     autopep8 package dir --recursive --select E101 E121 --in-place   See also Tool to convert Python code to be PEP8 compliant

User · Answer

Using Vim  it shouldn t be more involved than hitting Esc  and then typing       s  t      g      on the file you want to change  That will convert all tabs to four spaces  If you have inconsistent spacing as well  then that will be more difficult

User · Answer

Try IDLE  and use Alt   X to find indentation

User · Answer

On most UNIX-like systems  you can also run   expand -t4 oldfilename py  gt  newfilename py   from the command line  changing the number if you want to replace tabs with a number of spaces other than 4  You can easily write a shell script to do this with a bunch of files at once  retaining the original file names

User · Answer

In case of trying to find tool to make your 2-space indented python script to a tab indented version  just use this online tool   https   www tutorialspoint com online python formatter htm

User · Answer

There is also PythonTidy  since you said you like HTML Tidy    It can do a lot more than just clean up tabs though  If you like that type of thing  it s worth a look

User · Answer

Try Emacs  It has good support for indentation needed in Python  Please check this link http   python about com b 2007 09 24 emacs-tips-for-python-programmers htm

User · Answer

If you re using Vim  see  h retab                                                             ret    retab    range ret ab      new tabstop                          Replace all sequences of white-space containing a                          lt Tab gt  with new strings of white-space using the new                         tabstop value given   If you do not specify a new                         tabstop size or it is zero  Vim uses the current value                         of  tabstop                           The current value of  tabstop  is always used to                         compute the width of existing tabs                          With    Vim also replaces strings of only normal                         spaces with tabs where appropriate                          With  expandtab  on  Vim replaces all tabs with the                         appropriate number of spaces                          This command sets  tabstop  to the new value given                          and if performed on the whole file  which is default                          should not make any visible change                          Careful  This command modifies any  lt Tab gt  characters                         inside of strings in a C program   Use   t  to avoid                         this  that s a good habit anyway                             retab   may also change a sequence of spaces by                          lt Tab gt  characters  which can mess up a printf                             not in Vi                          Not available when   ex extra  feature was disabled at                         compile time    For example  if you simply type    ret   all your tabs will be expanded into spaces   You may want to    se et    shorthand for  set expandtab   to make sure that any new lines will not use literal tabs     If you re not using Vim    perl -i bak -pe  s  t    x 8-pos   8  eg  file py   will replace tabs with spaces  assuming tab stops every 8 characters  in file py  with the original going to file py bak  just in case    Replace the 8s with 4s if your tab stops are every 4 spaces instead

User · Answer

I have a simple solution for this problem  You can first type   retab  and then   retab    then everything would be fine

User · Answer

The reindent script did not work for me  due to some missing module  Anyway  I found this sed command which does the job perfect for me   sed -r  s                 1 1 2   file py

User · Answer

If you re lazy  like me   you can also download a trial version of Wingware Python IDE  which has an auto-fix tool for messed up indentation  It works pretty well  http   www wingware com

User · Answer

Use the reindent py script that you find in the Tools scripts  directory of your Python installation      Change Python   py  files to use   4-space indents and no hard tab   characters  Also trim excess spaces   and tabs from ends of lines  and   remove empty lines at the end of   files   Also ensure the last line ends   with a newline    Have a look at that script for detailed usage instructions

[python] How to fix Python indentation

`autopep8 -i script.py`

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