Python: using 4 spaces for indentation. Why?

python indentation conventions pep8
HardQuestions picture HardQuestions · Jul 14, 2009 · Viewed 78.4k times · Source

While coding python I'm using only 2 spaces to indent, sure PEP-8 really recommend to have 4 spaces, but historically for me it's unusual.

So, can anyone convince me to use 4 spaces instead of 2? What pros and cons?

P.S. And finally, what's easy way to convert all existing codebase from 2 spaces to 4 spaces?

P.P.S. PEP-8 Also srictly recommend not using tabs for indention. read here

So, to summarize:

Pros:

  • Have more space to arrange when wraping string more than 80 lines long.
  • Can copy code from snippets and it just works.

Cons:

  • With deeper level of nested statements you have less space for actual code.

Thanks.

Answer

Markus picture Markus · Jul 14, 2009

Everyone else uses 4 spaces. That is the only reason to use 4 spaces that I've come across and accepted. In my heart, I still want to use tabs (1 indent character per indent, makes sense, no? Separate indent from other whitespace. I don't care that tabs can be displayed as different widths, that makes no syntactic difference. The worst that can happen is that some of the comments don't line up. The horror!) but I've accepted that since the python community as a whole uses 4 spaces, I use 4 spaces. This way, I can assemble code from snippets others have written, and it all works.

Related questions

IndentationError: unindent does not match any outer indentation level

When I compile the Python code below, I get IndentationError: unindent does not match any outer indentation level import sys def Factorial(n): # Return factorial result = 1 for i in range (1,n): result = result * i print "factorial is ",result return result …

Read More
What to do with "Unexpected indent" in python?

How do I rectify the error "unexpected indent" in python?

Read More
"Expected an indented block" error?

I can't understand why python gives an "Expected indentation block" error? """ This module prints all the items within a list""" def print_lol(the_list): """ The following for loop iterates over every item in the list and checks whether the …

Read More