Question

Let’s say I have a block of code that is copied from one file to a new blank file. The code from the original file is indented as it should be, however I want to un-indent the code when placed in a new blank file. However, I only want to un-indent to the base indention, meaning I don’t want to remove ALL indentations. Make sense?

For example, when pasting a code block into a newly created file, it might look like this:

        <h1>Title</h1>
        <div>
            <p>This is a nested paragraph</p>
            <ul>
                <li>Even deeper!</li>
            </lu>
        </div>

I’m wanting to create a function, with regex and/or python, that will take the text above and turn it into this:

<h1>Title</h1>
<div>
    <p>This is a nested paragraph</p>
    <ul>
        <li>Even deeper!</li>
    </lu>
</div>

The only difference is the lead indentation.

Any ideas or help will be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

Look at the dedent function in the textwrap module: http://docs.python.org/library/textwrap.html#textwrap.dedent