[Rd] Tabs in R source code

Duncan Murdoch murdoch at stats.uwo.ca
Sun Nov 29 17:40:29 CET 2009


On 29/11/2009 10:58 AM, Peng Yu wrote:
> Some lines are indented by tabs and some lines are indented by spaces,
> in R source code. This might due to the fact that the source code is
> not from a single person. But I think that it is better to enforce a
> single convention.
> 
> My editor defaults a tab to 8 spaces. So some source doesn't seem to
> be indented correctly in my editor. Since tab may be displayed
> differently in different editor, I recommend to replace all the tabs
> by the appropriate number of spaces to ensure the same indentation
> display.

The R source code assumes that tabs occur every 8 columns, so if your 
editor is working properly, it should display files as intended.

> Could somebody update the source code in the future version by
> replacing tabs by spaces and enforce such a coding convention in the
> future?

No, that would not be feasible, for the reason you give in the second 
sentence of your post.

Duncan Murdoch



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