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# 32.8. `tabnanny` — Detection of ambiguous indentation

Source code: Lib/tabnanny.py

For the time being this module is intended to be called as a script. However it is possible to import it into an IDE and use the function `check()` described below.

Note

The API provided by this module is likely to change in future releases; such changes may not be backward compatible.

`tabnanny.``check`(file_or_dir)

  If file_or_dir is a directory and not a symbolic link, then recursively descend the directory tree named by file_or_dir, checking all `.py` files along the way. If file_or_dir is an ordinary Python source file, it is checked for whitespace related problems. The diagnostic messages are written to standard output using the `print()` function.

`tabnanny.``verbose`

  Flag indicating whether to print verbose messages. This is incremented by the `-v` option if called as a script.

`tabnanny.``filename_only`

  Flag indicating whether to print only the filenames of files containing whitespace related problems. This is set to true by the `-q` option if called as a script.

exception `tabnanny.``NannyNag`

  Raised by `tokeneater()` if detecting an ambiguous indent. Captured and handled in `check()`.

`tabnanny.``tokeneater`(type, token, start, end, line)

  This function is used by `check()` as a callback parameter to the function `tokenize.tokenize()`.

See also

Module `tokenize`
  Lexical scanner for Python source code.

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