43.16.1 Indentation Primitives

This section describes the primitive functions used to count and insert indentation. The functions in the following sections use these primitives.

Function: current-indentation &optional buffer

This function returns the indentation of the current line, which is the horizontal position of the first nonblank character. If the contents are entirely blank, then this is the horizontal position of the end of the line.

Command: indent-to column &optional minimum buffer

This function indents from point with tabs and spaces until column is reached. If minimum is specified and non-nil, then at least that many spaces are inserted even if this requires going beyond column. Otherwise the function does nothing if point is already beyond column. The value is the column at which the inserted indentation ends. If buffer is nil, the current buffer is assumed.

User Option: indent-tabs-mode

If this variable is non-nil, indentation functions can insert tabs as well as spaces. Otherwise, they insert only spaces. Setting this variable automatically makes it local to the current buffer.