Spyder: TabError: inconsistent use of tabs and spaces in indentation

Created on 1 Nov 2019 · 16Comments · Source: spyder-ide/spyder

Description

What steps will reproduce the problem?

I prefer Sypder over a larger IDE to have a lighter tool to try some code.
So I am copy-pasting a lot of code from external source, add something, ...
Too often I get the error message "TabError: inconsistent use of tabs and spaces in indentation", likely because some code uses spaces other tabs. Manual fixing this is quite cumbersome.
The function "fix identation" does help here either.

On top of that when I actually give up and replace tabs with spaces, delete the tab, insert spaces, the "tool tips" pop up for no reason ... and if I press the wrong button, I also suddenly have some code in there which I did not want.

Makes this version of Spyder almost unusable ....

Versions

Spyder version: 4.0.0b7
Python version: 3.8.0+
Qt version: 5.12.4
PyQt5 version: 5.12.3
Operating System: Linux 4.19.79-1-MANJARO

Dependencies

cloudpickle >=0.5.0          :  1.2.2 (OK)
pygments >=2.0               :  2.4.2 (OK)
qtconsole >=4.5.5            :  4.5.5 (OK)
nbconvert >=4.0              :  5.6.1 (OK)
sphinx >=0.6.6               :  2.2.1 (OK)
pylint >=0.25                :  2.4.3 (OK)
psutil >=0.3                 :  5.6.3 (OK)
qtawesome >=0.5.7            :  0.6.0 (OK)
qtpy >=1.5.0                 :  1.9.0 (OK)
pickleshare >=0.4            :  0.7.5 (OK)
zmq >=17                     :  18.1.0 (OK)
chardet >=2.0.0              :  3.0.4 (OK)
numpydoc >=0.6.0             :  0.9.1 (OK)
spyder_kernels >=1.5.0;<2.0.0:  1.6.0 (OK)
qdarkstyle >=2.7             :  2.7 (OK)
atomicwrites >=1.2.0         :  1.3.0 (OK)
diff_match_patch >=20181111  :  20181111 (OK)
watchdog                     :  None (OK)
keyring                      :  None (OK)
pexpect >=4.4.0              :  4.7.0 (OK)
pympler                      :  None (OK)
sympy >=0.7.3                :  None (NOK)
cython >=0.21                :  None (NOK)
IPython >=4.0                :  7.9.0 (OK)
matplotlib >=2.0.0           :  None (NOK)
pandas >=0.13.1              :  None (NOK)
numpy >=1.7                  :  None (NOK)
scipy >=0.17.0               :  None (NOK)
pyls >=0.28.2;<0.29.0        :  0.28.3 (OK)
xdg >=0.26                   :  0.26 (OK)

Editor Bug

Source

SvenMeyer

Most helpful comment

this error is so annoying, im not sure why it happens, everytime it happens i have to fix it by opening the code in sublime text-->view-->identation-->convert identation to tabs

isalirezag on 7 Nov 2019

👍2

All 16 comments

The function "fix identation" does help here either.

I guess you mean here "does not help". But why not? What's the problem? Please be more specific.

On top of that when I actually give up and replace tabs with spaces, delete the tab, insert spaces, the "tool tips" pop up for no reason ... and if I press the wrong button, I also suddenly have some code in there which I did not want.

I don't understand very well what you mean here. Please create a simple video and post it here to clarify.

ccordoba12 on 1 Nov 2019

this error is so annoying, im not sure why it happens, everytime it happens i have to fix it by opening the code in sublime text-->view-->identation-->convert identation to tabs

isalirezag on 7 Nov 2019

👍2

this error is so annoying

But what is the error? Please post the error so we can understand how to fix it.

ccordoba12 on 7 Nov 2019

As I described in the initial post:
"So I am copy-pasting a lot of code from external source, add something, ..."
Likely there is some code with used tabs for indentation others spaces, so you end up with mixture of both and get said error message.
In the meantime I discovered the option to display spaces and tabs, so in that case you could spot the problem, but still you would need to (manually?) change every ident.

I haven't found a function in Spyder to change idents from/to spaces/tabs
The function "fix identation" does help not here either
not manually, not (semi)automatically
other IDEs (ie Pycharm) provide conversion options and silently, automatically any copy-pasted text to fit the current ident style so that such error never pops up

SvenMeyer on 7 Nov 2019

@SvenMeyer, please upload a file with mixed tabs and spaces for which "Fix indentation" is not working, to see if we can reproduce the error in our side.

ccordoba12 on 7 Nov 2019

@ccordoba12 fyi it is hard to provide an example here.
why? because by copying and pasting it here it can mix the hiden info that cause that error to happens

isalirezag on 7 Nov 2019

You can attach a file @isalirezag or provide us with an error traceback (or both :-) )