tab converted to spaces

[gdhems]

Hello,

I have set the editor preferences to use tab character and smart fill. If I then highlight a row(s) with the mouse and hit the tab button spaces are substituted for the tab. This is annoying since we ident everything using tabs.

Am I setting one of the preferences incorrectly?

Regards,
Greg Hems

 

[Marco Kalter]

I don't see the tabs disappearing when using the indent function, but I do notice that the actual indents do not use the tab character. We'll fix this.

------------------
Marco Kalter
Allround Automations

 

[Worker]

I would like to lobby for this bug to be fixed soon, since it's the only bug I consistently run into.

Please make sure it's still on the list

 

[Marco Kalter]

It's still on the list

 

[William Robertson]

As a tab user I hit this type of issue a lot too:

* I always want to indent blocks of PL/SQL using tabs, never spaces.

* I always want to indent SQL using spaces, never tabs.

For SQL within an indented PL/SQL block I want it indented with tabs up to the PL/SQL block level, and then the remaining SQL spacing made up from spaces - for example see
http://www.williamrobertson.pwp.blu.../plsqlcodingstandards.html#indent-recommended

It would be totally cool if PL/SQL Dev could be the first editor to support this.

 

[ScottMattes]

I am curious, why the mix of tabs and spaces?

 

[William Robertson]

If you use tabs within SQL, then the alignment depends on a specific tab size, so it is broken as soon as you look at the code within a different editor, CVSWeb etc.

 

[whip]

That's exactly why I NEVER use tabs. Not even in PL/SQL

 

[ScottMattes]

I was wondering more why the tabs in PL/SQL. Is there some benefit that I am missing?

 

[William Robertson]

I agree it can be a PITA and there is certainly something to be said for not using tabs at all. I just like to have a separate block indent character. In other languages such as Shellscript, Java or even HTML and CSS you do not have the problem of nested DECODEs, subqueries etc taking odd amounts of blank space - it is just SQL you have to be careful with. If the editor could enforce some rules rather than just blindly replacing every multiple of n spaces with a tab character, tabs would be a lot more usable.

For example the regular expression

[^\t]\t

should never find any matches, because tabs should only follow a newline or another tab.

 

[Worker]

I see that "block indent uses spaces instead of tabs" still isn't fixed in 7.0.

It's still on the list then?

 

[Marco Kalter]

Yes, it is. I'm sure we'll get round to this shortly .

 

[William Robertson]

While you're looking at it perhaps you could also fix the vertical select (alt-mouseclick) which is broken when there are tabs

I'm guessing these aren't features you guys use internally.

 

[Worker]

I almost hate bringing this up again, but I will anyway

Will "block indent uses spaces instead of tabs" be fixed in 7.1?

 

[jasonvogel]

It needs to be an option. I used tabs, not spaces...