Reindent a source file
Problem
You have a source file that you want to work with but it mixes tabs and spaces. The interpreter eats the file but it’s a nightmare to work with. How to correct it?
Solution
Fortunately, the standard installation comes with a handy utility called “reindent.py“. You can find it with “locate reindent.py“.
Usage:
reindent.py bad.py
It will make a backup (bad.py.bak) of the original file and overwrite bad.py. The new bad.py will be indented correctly with 4 spaces everywhere.
Update (20120814)
If you don’t find reindent.py, it is located here: /usr/share/doc/python2.7/examples/Tools/scripts/reindent.py.
You might have to install the package “python-examples” to have it.
Leave a Reply
Hi
reindent.py is not in my scripts folder even though I’m using Python 2.7, Mac OS. In that case do I need to install reindent.py ?
Thanks.
Googling “reindent.py” dropped this at the first place: http://svn.python.org/projects/python/trunk/Tools/scripts/reindent.py . I tried it and it worked for me.