Undent

Undent turns strings stored in source code, which may have newlines, tabs, and whitespace inserted to adhere to code formatting and linting rules, into human-readable strings.

Strings in source code may be indented, bookended with whitespace, or contain newlines to adhere to code style guidelines. undent() gracefully removes such code style formatting and returns the original, intended string for human consumption.

To accomplish this, undent()

1. Dedents the multiline string to remove common indentation.

2. Strips preceeding and trailing whitespace, while preserving post-dedent indentation, to remove whitespace added for source code formatting.

3. Unwraps paragraphs to remove newlines inserted for source code formatting. E.g. newlines inserted to adhere to PEP 8's 79 characters per line limit.

   Or, optionally line wrap paragraphs to a custom width, e.g. 72 character per line.

Usage

Just import undent() and give it a multiline string.

from undent import undent

def createEmail():
    name = 'Billy'
    emailAddr = 'billy@gmail.com'
    email = undent(f'''
        Hi {name}!

        Thank you for registering with email address

          {emailAddr}

        We'd love to hear from you; please email us
        and say hello!''')

   return email

Above, undent() dedents, formats, and wraps the multiline string into a beautiful, human-readable string.

Hi Billy!

Thank you for registering with email address

  billy@gmail.com.

We'd love to hear from you; please email us and say hello!

undent(s, width=False, strip=True) takes two, optional arguments.

width

(default: False) width is the maximum length of wrapped lines, in characters, or False to unwrap lines. If width is an integer, as long as there are no individual words in the input string longer than width, no output line will be wider than width characters. Examples:

undent('Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Goldilocks.', width=30)

returns

Once upon a time, there was a
little girl named Goldilocks.

Conversely,

undent('''Once upon a time, there was a
little girl named Goldilocks.''', width=False)

returns

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Goldilocks.

strip

(default: True) strip determines whether or not to remove preceeding and trailing whitespace. Examples:

undent('''
    Once upon a time, there was a
    little girl named Goldilocks.
    ''', strip=True)

returns

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Goldilocks.

Alternatively

undent('''

    Once upon a time, there was a
    little girl named Goldilocks.

    ''', strip=False)

returns

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Goldilocks.

Examples

undent() dedents the string so indentation added for source code formatting isn't preserved.

if True:
    print(undent('''common

    indentation

is removed'''))

outputs

common

    indentation

is removed

undent() strips preceeding and trailing whitespace, while preserving post-dedent indentation, so whitespace added for source code formatting isn't unintentionally preserved.

if True:
    print(undent('''
        preceeding

            and trailing

        whitespace is removed
    '''))

outputs

preceeding

    and trailing

whitespace is removed

undent() unwraps paragraphs so newlines inserted for source code formatting aren't unintentionally preserved in the output, e.g. newlines inserted to avoid lines wider than PEP 8's 80 characters per line.

if someIndentation:
    if moreIndentation:
        if evenDeeperIndentation:
            print(undent(f'''
                Once upon a time, there was a little girl named
                Goldilocks. She went for a walk in the forest. Pretty
                soon, she came upon a house. She knocked and, when no
                one answered, she walked right in.
            
                At the table in the kitchen, there were three bowls of
                porridge. Goldilocks was hungry. She tasted the porridge
                from the first bowl.
            '''))

outputs

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Goldilocks. She went for a walk in the forest. Pretty soon, she came upon a house. She knocked and, when no one answered, she walked right in.

At the table in the kitchen, there were three bowls of porridge. Goldilocks was hungry. She tasted the porridge from the first bowl.

Or, optionally line wrap output paragraphs to your intended width, e.g. 72 character per line.

if someIndentation:
    if moreIndentation:
        if evenDeeperIndentation:
            width = 72
            print(undent(f'''
                Once upon a time, there was a little girl named
                Goldilocks. She went for a walk in the forest. Pretty
                soon, she came upon a house. She knocked and, when no
                one answered, she walked right in.
            
                At the table in the kitchen, there were three bowls of
                porridge. Goldilocks was hungry. She tasted the porridge
                from the first bowl.
            ''', width))

outputs

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Goldilocks. She went for
a walk in the forest. Pretty soon, she came upon a house. She knocked
and, when no one answered, she walked right in.

At the table in the kitchen, there were three bowls of porridge.
Goldilocks was hungry. She tasted the porridge from the first bowl.

Installation

Installing Undent with pip is easy.

$ pip install undent