In Emacs, how to line up equals signs in a series of initialization statements?

Question

I saw this somewhere, but cannot find it now. Is there a built-in function in emacs, or does someone have elisp, to line up all the equals signs in a series of inititialization statments in cc-mode?

Before:

int t=9;
Graphics g = new Graphics();
List<String> list = new List<String>();

After:

int          t    = 9;
Graphics     g    = new Graphics();
List<String> list = new List<String>();

score 46 · Accepted Answer · answered May 27 '09 at 14:35

46

Use M-x align-regexp (here, M-x align-regexp RET = RET). You can also add an "alignment rule" to the variable align-rules-list, so that in future M-x align will do it. See the documentation (C-h f align) for details.

answered May 27 '09 at 14:35

ShreevatsaR

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Ok, I've bound this to C-x |. How did I use emacs for so long and not know about this? Thanks for the help. – Cheeso May 27 '09 at 18:47
The only problem with this is that it "tabifies" the output, which is probably not what you want. Do you know any way to prevent this? – harpo Nov 14 '11 at 19:23
1

harpo: I've added a new answer for your question. – phils Nov 15 '11 at 00:15
This URL helped with making this into a fn: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3633120/emacs-hotkey-to-align-equal-signs – Nathan Lippi Jul 01 '13 at 17:36

score 18 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 15 '11 at 00:14

18

This is in response to harpo's comment to ShreevatsaR's answer:

The only problem with this is that it "tabifies" the output, which is probably not what you want. Do you know any way to prevent this?

Here's what I did to resolve that issue:

;; Align with spaces only
(defadvice align-regexp (around align-regexp-with-spaces)
  "Never use tabs for alignment."
  (let ((indent-tabs-mode nil))
    ad-do-it))
(ad-activate 'align-regexp)

answered Nov 15 '11 at 00:14

phils

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This is not a great answer to the original question, but valuable, valuable, valuable. (I think I just Ballmered.) – JasonFruit Apr 10 '12 at 05:22
It took me some time to understand what this [does](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10921225/what-does-ad-activate-do)... – Michel de Ruiter Jun 06 '12 at 19:56

score 7 · Answer 3 · answered May 27 '09 at 14:29

7

M-x align should do the trick.

answered May 27 '09 at 14:29

Nathaniel Flath

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In Emacs, how to line up equals signs in a series of initialization statements?

3 Answers3

Linked