How do I fix the indentation of an entire file in Vi?

Question

In Vim, what is the command to correct the indentation of all the lines?

Often times I'll copy and paste code into a remote terminal and have the whole thing messed up. I want to fix this in one fell swoop.

Answer 1

=, the indent command can take motions. So, gg to get the start of the file, = to indent, G to the end of the file, gg=G.

Answer 2

Before pasting into the terminal, try :set paste (and then :set nopaste after you're done). This will turn off the auto-indent, line-wrap, etc. features that are messing up your paste.

edit: Also, I should point out that a much better result than = indenting can usually be obtained by using an external program. For example, I run :%!perltidy all the time. astyle, cindent, etc. can also be used. And, of course, you can map those to a key stroke — and map different ones to the same keystroke depending on file type

Answer 3

If you want to reindent the block you're in without having to type any chords, you can do:

[[=]]

Answer 4

The master of all commands is

gg=G

This indents the entire file!

And below are some of the simple and elegant commands used to indent lines quickly in Vim or gVim.

To indent the all the lines below the current line

=G

To indent the current line

==

To indent n lines below the current line

n==

For example, to indent 4 lines below the current line

4==

To indent a block of code, go to one of the braces and use command

=%

Answer 5

You can use tidy application/utility to indent HTML & XML files and it works pretty well in indenting those files.

Prettify an XML file

:!tidy -mi -xml %

Prettify an HTML file

:!tidy -mi -html %

Answer 6

press escape and then type below combinations fast:

gg=G

Answer 7

1G=G. That should indent all the lines in the file. 1G takes you the first line, = will start the auto-indent and the final G will take you the last line in the file.

Answer 8

In Vim, use :insert. This will keep all your formatting and not do autoindenting. For more information help :insert.

Answer 9

:set paste is your friend I use putty and end up copying code between windows. Before I was turned on to :set paste (and :set nopaste) copy/paste gave me fits for that very reason.

Answer 10

if you do not want to use :set paste, middle-click, set nopaste, you can also paste the content of the clipboard:

"*p
"+p

That way you don't have to leave normal mode. if you have to paste + or * depends on how you selected the text, see :help quoteplus.

Answer 11

vim-autoformat formats your source files using external programs specific for your language, e.g. rbeautify" gem for Ruby files, "js-beautify" npm package for JavaScript.

Answer 12

For complex C++ files vim does not always get the formatting right when using vim's = filter command. So for a such situations it is better to use an external C++ formatter like astyle (or uncrustify) e.g.:

:%!astyle

Vim's '=' function uses its internal formatter by default (which doesn't always gets things right) but one can also set it use an external formatter, like astyle, by setting it up appropriately as discussed in this question.

Answer 13

vi should respect tabs and spaces, however you should consider that vi may be using different length tabs than your other editor. Can you be any more specific than "whole thing messed up"?

Answer 14

For XML files, I use this command

:1,$!xmllint --format --recover - 2>/dev/null

You need to have xmllint installed (package libxml2-utils)

(Source : http://ku1ik.com/2011/09/08/formatting-xml-in-vim-with-indent-command.html )

Answer 15

You can create a mapping to do this for you.

This one will auto indent the whole file and still keep your cursor in the position you are:

nmap <leader>ai mzgg=G`z

Answer 16

Just go to visual mode in vim , and select from up to down lines after selecting just press = , All the selected line will be indented.

Answer 17

For vi Editor, use :insert. This will keep all your formatting and not insert auto-indenting.Once done press escape to view the actual formatted file otherwise you'l see some garbage characters. like ^I e.g:

public static void main(String[] args) {
^I
^I System.out.println("Some Garbage printed upon using :insert"); 
}