emacsmakefiletext-editor
For several reasons I prefer to configure my editor to insert spaces when TAB is pressed.
But recently I discovered that tabs should remain as tabs in make files.
How do I insert tab (\t, not " ") without reconfiguring editors each time I need to write make files?
I use the following editors:
Emacs, Kate, gedit, and the Visual Studio editor.
WhiteSpace mode is an Emacs minor mode for visualizing all white space characters in the current buffer. It can be activated with M-x whitespace-mode.
Here is a screenshot of WhiteSpace in action taken directly from the Emacs wiki,
Note: WhiteSpaceMode has now replaced BlankMode
You can't really do it for all modes as there are mode-specific indentation variables, but you can set it it for all of the languages you care about. For C, something akin to the following in your .emacs should work for what you describe:
(add-hook 'c-mode-common-hook`
(lambda ()
(setq c-basic-offset 4)
(setq tab-width 4)
(setq standard-indent 4)
(setq c-tab-always-indent t)
)
)
That will set up tab stops at 4 characters and make 4 the default indentation level for all C-style modes. For other languages and their respective modes, you have to look up their indentation variables and set them accordingly in that mode's common hook. Some examples include 'sh-indentation, 'tcl-indent-level, and 'perl-indent-level. The easiest way to figure out what needs to be set is to run:
M-x describe-key [TAB]
That should send you down the rabbit hole.
Cheers!
Sean
Best Answer
To manually insert a tab in Emacs, use ctrl-Q TAB. control-Q causes the next key to be inserted rather than interpreted as a possible command.