# Vim: space or tab in indenting? **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [May 5, 2006, 2:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/vim-space-or-tab-in-indenting/59689 "2006-05-05T14:30:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mutejute](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@mutejute](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mutejute)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2006, 2:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/vim-space-or-tab-in-indenting/59689/1 "2006-05-05T14:30:17Z")
this is semi-off topic but still related to ror. i had a problem with testing my depot program (which i follow the tutorial in agile web development book). it took me many hours to solved the problem. all the while i thought i was using spaces inside the test/fixtures/products.yml programmer\_book: id: 1 title: Pragmatic Programmer description: Best book for the programmer image\_url: [http://localhost:3000/images/pp.jpg](http://localhost:3000/images/pp.jpg) price: 29.95 date\_available: 2006-05-01 00:00:00 ^^ ^^^^ the culprit is there were tabs in my code, before the key (id, title,…). replaced it with space and now my program/testing worked. im using vim and i was thinking of changing my preferences on tabbing/indenting. instead of tabs, it will insert spaces. but i want to know if there are any implications on using space instead of tabs in the code. thanks. ---
**Author:** ![mutejute](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@mutejute](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mutejute)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2006, 2:36pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/vim-space-or-tab-in-indenting/59689/2 "2006-05-05T14:36:14Z")
Hi seems that (although I wasn’t aware of that) tab are prohibited under YAML (see [YAML Ain't Markup Language](http://www.yaml.org/faq.html)) cheers ---
**Author:** ![mutejute](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@mutejute](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mutejute)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2006, 3:15pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/vim-space-or-tab-in-indenting/59689/3 "2006-05-05T15:15:55Z")
malamute jute wrote: > im using vim and i was thinking of changing my preferences on > tabbing/indenting. instead of tabs, it will insert spaces. but i want to > know if there are any implications on using space instead of tabs in the > code. thanks. In YAML, as has already been pointed out, tabs are banned. In code? That’s a religious question, but I think the tendency among rubyists is towards spaces over tabs, because you can’t guarantee the appearance of indentation with tabs. There is (as I understand it) currently an issue with RMagick on Windows related to tabs in code, but that’s definitely a bug somewhere. They should be interchangable. ---
**Author:** ![mutejute](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@mutejute](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mutejute)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2006, 3:28pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/vim-space-or-tab-in-indenting/59689/4 "2006-05-05T15:28:09Z")
On May 5, 2006, at 9:13 AM, Alex Y. wrote: > There is (as I understand it) currently an issue with RMagick on > Windows related to tabs in code, but that’s definitely a bug > somewhere. They should be interchangable. You probably won’t run into this dealing with Ruby, but if you write old fashioned Makefiles, they _require_ tabs. And if you use spaces in your make rules, it gives a rather cryptic error message…yeah, that one took me a while to track down. grrr Other than that, I prefer spaces … especially if swapping code with others! 🙂 -Derrick ---
**Author:** ![mutejute](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@mutejute](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mutejute)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2006, 4:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/vim-space-or-tab-in-indenting/59689/5 "2006-05-05T16:26:57Z")
On Fri, 5 May 2006, malamute jute wrote: > im using vim and i was thinking of changing my preferences on > tabbing/indenting. instead of tabs, it will insert spaces. but i want to > know if there are any implications on using space instead of tabs in the > code. thanks. The Ruby and Rails folks seem to prefer spaces, with two spaces per indentation level. The Rails website actually says this is what you should use if you want to contribute code. Myself, I prefer tabs, but I suspect I’ll move to what the community uses because it isn’t worth struggling with. I use vim all the time as well, and it’s default bindings with the tabs and autoindent have been making me insane, and I probably will finally go in and shut them off. – Louis Erickson - removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid - [Lou's Home Page!](http://www.rdwarf.com/~wwonko/) Hartley’s Second Law: Never sleep with anyone crazier than yourself. ---
**Author:** ![mutejute](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@mutejute](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mutejute)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2006, 5:59pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/vim-space-or-tab-in-indenting/59689/6 "2006-05-05T17:59:15Z")
So what is the main reason why the rails community uses spaces instead of tabs? I’ve always used tabs because it offers control of how much white space is shown to the current person editing the file, not who originally wrote it. My coworker likes to have 8 char wide tabs, I personally hate that and like to edit with 4 char wide tabs and maybe others like 2. Rob ---
**Author:** ![mutejute](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@mutejute](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mutejute)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2006, 6:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/vim-space-or-tab-in-indenting/59689/7 "2006-05-05T18:50:56Z")
Rob M. wrote: > So what is the main reason why the rails community uses spaces instead > of > tabs? I’ve always used tabs because it offers control of how much white > space is shown to the current person editing the file, not who > originally > wrote it. My coworker likes to have 8 char wide tabs, I personally hate > that and like to edit with 4 char wide tabs and maybe others like 2. > > Rob It keeps code looking nice 2 space tabs: SomeModel.create :value =\> 1, :foo =\> 123, :bar =\> ‘asdf’ now convert that to 4 space tabs and you have something like: ``` SomeModel.create :value => 1, :foo => 123, :bar => 'asdf' ``` ---
**Author:** ![mutejute](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@mutejute](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mutejute)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2006, 5:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/vim-space-or-tab-in-indenting/59689/8 "2006-05-05T17:50:09Z")
On May 5, 2006, at 7:10 AM, Louis Erickson wrote: > indentation level. The Rails website actually says this is what you > in and shut them off. > > – > Louis Erickson - removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid - [Lou's Home Page!](http://www.rdwarf.com/~wwonko/) FOr ruby code I always use spaces. It is what most of the ruby code you will find uses. And a really good reason not to use tabs is that when you use tabs, you can no longer paster your code into irb to play with it for testing. Irb will see each tab as a command completion requests and flip out on you. Since irb is such an indespensible tool for ruby code, this fact alone warrants only ever using spaces. Cheers- -Ezra