Indentation problem

[Duncan Booth]

Gilles Diribarne <gdiribarne at udcast.com> wrote in 
news:mailman.1017062259.25098.python-list at python.org:

> EXAMPLE:
> 
> pythona.py:
>   def func():
>     a = 1
>     if a == 1:
>       a ==2
> 
> 
> 
> pythonb.py
>     def func2():
>         a = 2
>         if a == 2:
>              print "Yeah!"
> 
> 
> You cannot merge correctly or tell me how to do this ?
> 

Sadly, neither pythona.py nor pythonb.py is syntactically valid. To make 
them acceptable to Python, you must remove all the indentation before the 
'def' keywords. Once you do this, so that each function begins with a line 
that is not indented your problem goes away. Just copy and paste the code, 
and even though the function bodies are indented differently everything 
will work.

In practice copying Python code is less usual than in many other languages 
because Python makes it so much easier to reuse code in-place without 
copying. Just remember to put the body of any script in a block with "if 
__name__=='__main__':" guarding it, and you can then safely import the 
script and pick out any functions you need at runtime.

Code reuse beats copying.

BTW, Python does have a block end marker. It is spelled '# end'. Look in 
your Python installation for the file Tools/Scripts/pindent.py. Running 
this program with the -c option will 'correct' your code to use the block 
end marker everywhere. The -d option will make your code readable to 
everyone else again. If you mess up the indentation then the -r option will 
use the #end markers to put indentation back in again.
See also reindent.py in the same directory for making source files use 
consistent indentation.

-- 
Duncan Booth                                             duncan at rcp.co.uk
int month(char *p){return(124864/((p[0]+p[1]-p[2]&0x1f)+1)%12)["\5\x8\3"
"\6\7\xb\1\x9\xa\2\0\4"];} // Who said my code was obscure?