Spyder: Cannot change PEP8 settings to ignore tabs instead of 4 spaces (W191)

[paragrastogi]

Description of your problem

What steps will reproduce the problem?

1. Insert a tab instead of the four spaces indent.
2. Do a style guide analysis.
3. PEP8 warning W191 shows up:

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
I looked for an option to disable this (or any other) warning. Something similar to running pep8 --ignore=W191 script.py. There seems to have been a discussion about this a while ago but I couldn't find whether the option had finally been implemented.

Please provide any additional information below

Versions and main components

• Spyder Version: 3.2.4
• Python Version: 3.6.3
• Qt Version: 5.6.2
• PyQt Version: 5.6
• Operating system: Windows 10

Dependencies

Please go to the menu entry Help > Optional Dependencies (or
Help > Dependencies), press the button Copy to clipboard
and paste the contents below:

[CAMGerlach-Baron]

This relates to pep8/pycodestyle, not Spyder, but a quick Google revealed this page that discusses exactly how to make pylint ignore any given error: just create edit the .pycodestyle file in your home directory, so it reads

[pycodestyle]
ignore = W191

and it should work like a charm. Just tested it with a few warnings (blank space at end of line/on blank line) that I wanted it to ignore, and it did the trick. In any case, would therefore suggest this issue be closed.

[ccordoba12]

It shouldn't be hard to implement, but we don't have time to do it right now, sorry.

[paragrastogi]

@CAMGerlach-Baron - I meant that I can't change the settings of the PEP8 style checker in Python. It looks like pycodestyle is a separate package. Will it integrate inside Spyder's editor?

[ccordoba12]

Since our 3.2 version, we use pycodestyle instead of pep8. That's because pep8 was renamed to pycodestyle.

[CAM-Gerlach]

@ccordoba12 Thanks for clarifying. So @paragrastogi are you asking for a GUI option in the preferences, or is just adding it in the .pycodestylerc file line any other exclusion, similar to the same with pylint for static analysis fine for you?

[paragrastogi]

@CAMGerlach-Baron : GUI option is better for noobs like me, but I just implemented your suggestion and it works! Thanks all for your help.

[CAM-Gerlach]

@ccordoba12 Someone related: Given the transition to pycodestyle, I'm curious as to why the "Real-time code style analysis" checkbox apparently in both master and 3.x checks for the presence of pep8 (is_pep8 = get_checker_executable("pep8")) and not pycodestyle; the former is not listed in requirements.txt for Spyder in either branch, and thus the user cannot enable pep8 checking unless they separately install pep8 for get_checker_executable to find it.

However, this check seems like it could be a holdover from the pep8 era, as when I modified the relevant line in the file plugins/editor.py in master to read get_checker_executable("pycodestyle"), the option's checkbox was enabled, and pep8 checking worked fine. Conversely, as it is now, I removed pycodestyle and installed pep8 and the checkbox was enabled, but checking was not performed. Bug? Should I submit an issue?

[grandslammer]

Any update on this? I'm new to Spyder and I really like the tab indentation. I also love the real-time code analysis. It's so much easier to see tab indentation rather than trying to align spaces (even with "show blank spaces turned on!)
Please add a GUI option for this!

[CAM-Gerlach]

@grandslammer It's quite easy to do already—see my comment above—and its ultimately the responsibility of a third-party package (Pycodestyle), not Spyder, so as an all-volunteer community busy maintaining Spyder 3, developing a number of major new features in Spyder 4, revamping a number of plugins, and overhauling our docs, we unfortunately really don't have the bandwidth to do this at the moment.

However, since Spyder is both a Python IDE and written in Python itself, you're welcome to add it and we'd be glad to review a PR to include it in Spyder for everyone. It shouldn't be too hard at all, and we can give you some guidance on what you need to change if you're interested. Thanks!