Undent

Undent turns multiline source code strings -- which may be indented, bookended with whitespace, or contain newlines inserted to avoid long lines -- into beautiful, human-readable strings.

To do this, undent()

1. Dedents the multiline string so common indentation added for source code formatting isn't unintentionally preserved.

2. Strips preceeding and trailing whitespace, while preserving post-dedent indentation, so whitespace added for source code formatting isn't unintentionally preserved.

3. Unwraps paragraphs so newlines inserted for source code formatting aren't unintentionally preserved in the output, 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 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}

        Welcome to the family. We'd love to hear from you; please email us
        and say hi!''')

   return email

Above, undent() dedents, formats, and returns a nice, human-readable multiline string, regardless of how the multiline string in the Python source is indented, formatted, or broken across lines. (Like to adhere to PEP 8.)

Hi Billy!

Thank you for registering with email address

  billy@gmail.com.

Welcome to the family. We'd love to hear from you; please email us with any questions you have!

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.

Behavior Examples

1. 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

2. 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

3. 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