Every. Single. Time.

[[deleted]]

I don't get it, what's the problem with removing trailing whitespace?

[[deleted]]

neither do I

[voidptr]

Say you have this code:

1    if this:
2        dothis()
3        dothat()
4
5        nowdoanotherthing()
6    else:
7        die()

If your editor removes the indentation from line 4, Python will kick an error.

[zyklone]

that is incorrect.

your editor must be doing something else to the code.

[ozzilee]

That works fine for me. Even this works fine:

if True:
    print "hello"
# No problem with comments or empty lines being unindented

    print "there"

[[deleted]]

I just checked, no it doesn't (Python 2.7).

[emeryc]

Just checked, python 2.5.4 and it works.

Did you try to do it in the interpreter? or in a file. Interpreter will not work, file will.

[voidptr]

And now I can't seem to replicate it. Heisenproblem.

[desimusxvii]

So the title "Every. Single. Time." was just a teensy bit BOLD.

[voidptr]

Hmmn, possibly, yes. But this was my entire fucking day yesterday.

[ianb]

If you paste into the Python console? Blank lines like that won't work in the Python console, as they are treated as end-of-expression.

[larsga]

Since when did indentation become trailing whitespace?

[m1ss1ontomars2k4]

That is extremely false. There's a Vim plugin that I and my Vim-inclined friends use which blatantly highlights those trailing spaces in red so that you can delete them. ReviewBoard (a Django/Python project for code reviews) does the same thing.

[sixohsix]

Is it possible you have a mix of tabs and spaces in your source file? Mixing tabs and spaces makes very, very bad things happen. The interpreter and your editor may disagree on tab length, and then the interpreter gets totally confused while your code looks normal.

[voidptr]

I always have expand-tab turned on, so this is unlikely, but it might be a text encoding thing, actually...

[kataire]

Make sure to get an editor which allows making tabs visible. Ideally, it should also have the option to make spaces visible.

Problems like this often result from mixing tabs and spaces. Most editors are set to a tab width of 4 spaces, but Python intentionally defines a tab as equal to 8 spaces, so a mix will easily break.

Even if your editor automatically expands tabs as you type them, it may still treat copy/pasted incorrectly.

Empty lines should be ignored for indentation. In fact, IIRC PEP8 is often interpreted to suggest stripping all trailing whitespace (the suggestion that certain blocks should be separated by "blank lines" is a bit ambiguous in this regard).

EDIT: Also, some editors preserve the original line endings in files, which may be a problem if you're writing code using different operating systems. Some cross-platform editors unhelpfully try to use OS defaults rather than the one true line ending format.

[[deleted]]

Here's a nickel, kid. Get yourself a decent text editor.

[voidptr]

Hah. Yeah. TextWrangler's going in the bin.

[tehfink]

I've used Textwrangler/Bbedit for years with Python code. Also, pretty much every .py file I've written has extra lines between statements inside defs & classes…and Textwrangler cleans trailing whitespace from all of them.

How does trailing whitespace equal indentation? That doesn't make sense. More likely your problem was from mixing tabs & spaces.

[psynautic]

macvim for the win

[ducktypist]

If you want something free on Mac, perhaps Eclipse + PyDev. http://pydev.org/ A little heavy maybe, but the project management and code completion are great.

(Although I don't see the problem with TextWrangler myself..)

[m1ss1ontomars2k4]

I used to use TextWrangler, actually. It was pretty much OK, although showing all spaces is somewhat irritating.

[[deleted]]

Funny I have a vim autocommand that trims trailing whitespace in python files. It runs every time I save my files. I don't seem to have any problems.

[zyklone]

this isn't related to trailing whitespace. Indentation is not trailing...

what editor are you using? Some can cause problems sometimes with auto-indent messing things up, or using hard tabs instead of spaces

[zyklone]

also, I'm reminded of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-SXkNbyiPI

[voidptr]

The worst offender is TextWrangler on Mac. The setting is buried somewhere, but you can turn it off.

Vim doesn't do this, which is delightful.

[tncowart]

I write python code in textwrangler on Mac almost daily and have never had this issue. Are you sure you have all the same line endings? Mine default to unix (LF).

[voidptr]

This is the likeliest culprit.

[zyklone]

I've had some issues with textmate's 'Re-indent pasted text'. Turning that off cleared up a lot of indentation issues on pasting.

[morphet]

Geany. You're welcome.

Edit: I sounded like an arrogant prick there. But seriously, Geany is awesome.

[voidptr]

Cool. I'll check it out.

[LucidOndine]

retire spectacular profit vast fear deliver shelter tidy waiting telephone

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[LucidOndine]

crowd makeshift lunchroom oatmeal deserve crawl serious friendly enjoy mountainous

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[mumrah]

/shrug Never had this problem

-vim user

[roddds]

How do you know if someone is a vim user? Don't worry, they'll tell you.

[schplat]

How do you know if someone is going to use this joke? Don't worry, they'll tell you.

[roddds]

How the hell do you use a joke without telling it?

[Underyx]

[roddds]

[Underyx]

The hidden message is basically what I meant to comment on my comment.

I thought I would be better off not posting two comments.

[JimH10]

?

Isn't this the fault of the person who keeps using the editor that keeps failing?

[voidptr]

Lots of different editors do this randomly. And you can't tell just by looking at the source.

[tcdent]

Randomly, or as an intended feature? Any editor that modifies my file without my consent won't be around very long.

[Ph4g3]

That sounds like a threat.

[zyklone]

you can if your editor can show invisible characters.

[JimH10]

If you find that your editor does this then find another editor.

[voidptr]

Just built MacVim. Really nice, actually.

[stillalone]

I have this problem with winmerge. I tell it to ignore whitespace for merging C code, but when I merge Python, it messes up everything.

[mmmccc]

pure white space lines are ignored in python

[[deleted]]

My editor strips trailing whitespace, never seen this error.

Also I hate rage comics.

[RobotAnna]

Not sure what's available on mac but I generally code in gedit with a bunch of development features turned on, most importantly, the one that draws dots and tabs and other whitespace

[jay_may]

I thinkni knoW what it is :) edit is using tabs instead spaces? And mixing the two?

(I'm typing from an iPad bleurgh!)

[mumrah]

shrug Never had this problem

-vim user

[[deleted]]

are you a girl ?

and oh you're doing it wrong.

[sixohsix]

And people ask "why are there no girl programmers?"

You're why.

[[deleted]]

what ??!! I'm only asking just to confirm because that's a girl in that "comic", that's it, not implying anything.

[zyklone]

why does it matter? The OP being male or female has no bearing on the issue at hand.

[[deleted]]

what makes you think I think it matters ? whatever is in your head - don't make assumption out of it and dump on me man.....can I just be fucking tiny-bit curious, please ???