|  | <!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en" data-content_root="../">
  <head>
    <meta charset="utf-8" />
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" /><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1" />
<meta property="og:title" content="tabnanny — Detection of ambiguous indentation" />
<meta property="og:type" content="website" />
<meta property="og:url" content="https://docs.python.org/3/library/tabnanny.html" />
<meta property="og:site_name" content="Python documentation" />
<meta property="og:description" content="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." />
<meta property="og:image" content="https://docs.python.org/3/_static/og-image.png" />
<meta property="og:image:alt" content="Python documentation" />
<meta name="description" content="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." />
<meta property="og:image:width" content="200" />
<meta property="og:image:height" content="200" />
<meta name="theme-color" content="#3776ab" />
    <title>tabnanny — Detection of ambiguous indentation — Python 3.12.3 documentation</title><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    
    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../_static/pygments.css?v=80d5e7a1" />
    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../_static/pydoctheme.css?v=bb723527" />
    <link id="pygments_dark_css" media="(prefers-color-scheme: dark)" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../_static/pygments_dark.css?v=b20cc3f5" />
    
    <script src="../_static/documentation_options.js?v=2c828074"></script>
    <script src="../_static/doctools.js?v=888ff710"></script>
    <script src="../_static/sphinx_highlight.js?v=dc90522c"></script>
    
    <script src="../_static/sidebar.js"></script>
    
    <link rel="search" type="application/opensearchdescription+xml"
          title="Search within Python 3.12.3 documentation"
          href="../_static/opensearch.xml"/>
    <link rel="author" title="About these documents" href="../about.html" />
    <link rel="index" title="Index" href="../genindex.html" />
    <link rel="search" title="Search" href="../search.html" />
    <link rel="copyright" title="Copyright" href="../copyright.html" />
    <link rel="next" title="pyclbr — Python module browser support" href="pyclbr.html" />
    <link rel="prev" title="tokenize — Tokenizer for Python source" href="tokenize.html" />
    <link rel="canonical" href="https://docs.python.org/3/library/tabnanny.html" />
    
      
    
    
    <style>
      @media only screen {
        table.full-width-table {
            width: 100%;
        }
      }
    </style>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="../_static/pydoctheme_dark.css" media="(prefers-color-scheme: dark)" id="pydoctheme_dark_css">
    <link rel="shortcut icon" type="image/png" href="../_static/py.svg" />
            <script type="text/javascript" src="../_static/copybutton.js"></script>
            <script type="text/javascript" src="../_static/menu.js"></script>
            <script type="text/javascript" src="../_static/search-focus.js"></script>
            <script type="text/javascript" src="../_static/themetoggle.js"></script> 
  </head>
<body>
<div class="mobile-nav">
    <input type="checkbox" id="menuToggler" class="toggler__input" aria-controls="navigation"
           aria-pressed="false" aria-expanded="false" role="button" aria-label="Menu" />
    <nav class="nav-content" role="navigation">
        <label for="menuToggler" class="toggler__label">
            <span></span>
        </label>
        <span class="nav-items-wrapper">
            <a href="https://www.python.org/" class="nav-logo">
                <img src="../_static/py.svg" alt="Python logo"/>
            </a>
            <span class="version_switcher_placeholder"></span>
            <form role="search" class="search" action="../search.html" method="get">
                <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="20" height="20" viewBox="0 0 24 24" class="search-icon">
                    <path fill-rule="nonzero" fill="currentColor" d="M15.5 14h-.79l-.28-.27a6.5 6.5 0 001.48-5.34c-.47-2.78-2.79-5-5.59-5.34a6.505 6.505 0 00-7.27 7.27c.34 2.8 2.56 5.12 5.34 5.59a6.5 6.5 0 005.34-1.48l.27.28v.79l4.25 4.25c.41.41 1.08.41 1.49 0 .41-.41.41-1.08 0-1.49L15.5 14zm-6 0C7.01 14 5 11.99 5 9.5S7.01 5 9.5 5 14 7.01 14 9.5 11.99 14 9.5 14z"></path>
                </svg>
                <input placeholder="Quick search" aria-label="Quick search" type="search" name="q" />
                <input type="submit" value="Go"/>
            </form>
        </span>
    </nav>
    <div class="menu-wrapper">
        <nav class="menu" role="navigation" aria-label="main navigation">
            <div class="language_switcher_placeholder"></div>
            
<label class="theme-selector-label">
    Theme
    <select class="theme-selector" oninput="activateTheme(this.value)">
        <option value="auto" selected>Auto</option>
        <option value="light">Light</option>
        <option value="dark">Dark</option>
    </select>
</label>
  <div>
    <h4>Previous topic</h4>
    <p class="topless"><a href="tokenize.html"
                          title="previous chapter"><code class="xref py py-mod docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">tokenize</span></code> — Tokenizer for Python source</a></p>
  </div>
  <div>
    <h4>Next topic</h4>
    <p class="topless"><a href="pyclbr.html"
                          title="next chapter"><code class="xref py py-mod docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">pyclbr</span></code> — Python module browser support</a></p>
  </div>
  <div role="note" aria-label="source link">
    <h3>This Page</h3>
    <ul class="this-page-menu">
      <li><a href="../bugs.html">Report a Bug</a></li>
      <li>
        <a href="https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/main/Doc/library/tabnanny.rst"
            rel="nofollow">Show Source
        </a>
      </li>
    </ul>
  </div>
        </nav>
    </div>
</div>
  
    <div class="related" role="navigation" aria-label="related navigation">
      <h3>Navigation</h3>
      <ul>
        <li class="right" style="margin-right: 10px">
          <a href="../genindex.html" title="General Index"
             accesskey="I">index</a></li>
        <li class="right" >
          <a href="../py-modindex.html" title="Python Module Index"
             >modules</a> |</li>
        <li class="right" >
          <a href="pyclbr.html" title="pyclbr — Python module browser support"
             accesskey="N">next</a> |</li>
        <li class="right" >
          <a href="tokenize.html" title="tokenize — Tokenizer for Python source"
             accesskey="P">previous</a> |</li>
          <li><img src="../_static/py.svg" alt="Python logo" style="vertical-align: middle; margin-top: -1px"/></li>
          <li><a href="https://www.python.org/">Python</a> »</li>
          <li class="switchers">
            <div class="language_switcher_placeholder"></div>
            <div class="version_switcher_placeholder"></div>
          </li>
          <li>
              
          </li>
    <li id="cpython-language-and-version">
      <a href="../index.html">3.12.3 Documentation</a> »
    </li>
          <li class="nav-item nav-item-1"><a href="index.html" >The Python Standard Library</a> »</li>
          <li class="nav-item nav-item-2"><a href="language.html" accesskey="U">Python Language Services</a> »</li>
        <li class="nav-item nav-item-this"><a href=""><code class="xref py py-mod docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">tabnanny</span></code> — Detection of ambiguous indentation</a></li>
                <li class="right">
                    
    <div class="inline-search" role="search">
        <form class="inline-search" action="../search.html" method="get">
          <input placeholder="Quick search" aria-label="Quick search" type="search" name="q" id="search-box" />
          <input type="submit" value="Go" />
        </form>
    </div>
                     |
                </li>
            <li class="right">
<label class="theme-selector-label">
    Theme
    <select class="theme-selector" oninput="activateTheme(this.value)">
        <option value="auto" selected>Auto</option>
        <option value="light">Light</option>
        <option value="dark">Dark</option>
    </select>
</label> |</li>
            
      </ul>
    </div>    
    <div class="document">
      <div class="documentwrapper">
        <div class="bodywrapper">
          <div class="body" role="main">
            
  <section id="module-tabnanny">
<span id="tabnanny-detection-of-ambiguous-indentation"></span><h1><a class="reference internal" href="#module-tabnanny" title="tabnanny: Tool for detecting white space related problems in Python source files in a directory tree."><code class="xref py py-mod docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">tabnanny</span></code></a> — Detection of ambiguous indentation<a class="headerlink" href="#module-tabnanny" title="Link to this heading">¶</a></h1>
<p><strong>Source code:</strong> <a class="reference external" href="https://github.com/python/cpython/tree/3.12/Lib/tabnanny.py">Lib/tabnanny.py</a></p>
<hr class="docutils" />
<p>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 <a class="reference internal" href="#tabnanny.check" title="tabnanny.check"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">check()</span></code></a>
described below.</p>
<div class="admonition note">
<p class="admonition-title">Note</p>
<p>The API provided by this module is likely to change in future releases; such
changes may not be backward compatible.</p>
</div>
<dl class="py function">
<dt class="sig sig-object py" id="tabnanny.check">
<span class="sig-prename descclassname"><span class="pre">tabnanny.</span></span><span class="sig-name descname"><span class="pre">check</span></span><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em class="sig-param"><span class="n"><span class="pre">file_or_dir</span></span></em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#tabnanny.check" title="Link to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd><p>If <em>file_or_dir</em> is a directory and not a symbolic link, then recursively
descend the directory tree named by <em>file_or_dir</em>, checking all <code class="file docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">.py</span></code>
files along the way.  If <em>file_or_dir</em> is an ordinary Python source file, it
is checked for whitespace related problems.  The diagnostic messages are
written to standard output using the <a class="reference internal" href="functions.html#print" title="print"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">print()</span></code></a> function.</p>
</dd></dl>
<dl class="py data">
<dt class="sig sig-object py" id="tabnanny.verbose">
<span class="sig-prename descclassname"><span class="pre">tabnanny.</span></span><span class="sig-name descname"><span class="pre">verbose</span></span><a class="headerlink" href="#tabnanny.verbose" title="Link to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd><p>Flag indicating whether to print verbose messages. This is incremented by the
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">-v</span></code> option if called as a script.</p>
</dd></dl>
<dl class="py data">
<dt class="sig sig-object py" id="tabnanny.filename_only">
<span class="sig-prename descclassname"><span class="pre">tabnanny.</span></span><span class="sig-name descname"><span class="pre">filename_only</span></span><a class="headerlink" href="#tabnanny.filename_only" title="Link to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd><p>Flag indicating whether to print only the filenames of files containing
whitespace related problems.  This is set to true by the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">-q</span></code> option if called
as a script.</p>
</dd></dl>
<dl class="py exception">
<dt class="sig sig-object py" id="tabnanny.NannyNag">
<em class="property"><span class="pre">exception</span><span class="w"> </span></em><span class="sig-prename descclassname"><span class="pre">tabnanny.</span></span><span class="sig-name descname"><span class="pre">NannyNag</span></span><a class="headerlink" href="#tabnanny.NannyNag" title="Link to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd><p>Raised by <a class="reference internal" href="#tabnanny.process_tokens" title="tabnanny.process_tokens"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">process_tokens()</span></code></a> if detecting an ambiguous indent. Captured and
handled in <a class="reference internal" href="#tabnanny.check" title="tabnanny.check"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">check()</span></code></a>.</p>
</dd></dl>
<dl class="py function">
<dt class="sig sig-object py" id="tabnanny.process_tokens">
<span class="sig-prename descclassname"><span class="pre">tabnanny.</span></span><span class="sig-name descname"><span class="pre">process_tokens</span></span><span class="sig-paren">(</span><em class="sig-param"><span class="n"><span class="pre">tokens</span></span></em><span class="sig-paren">)</span><a class="headerlink" href="#tabnanny.process_tokens" title="Link to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd><p>This function is used by <a class="reference internal" href="#tabnanny.check" title="tabnanny.check"><code class="xref py py-func docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">check()</span></code></a> to process tokens generated by the
<a class="reference internal" href="tokenize.html#module-tokenize" title="tokenize: Lexical scanner for Python source code."><code class="xref py py-mod docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">tokenize</span></code></a> module.</p>
</dd></dl>
<div class="admonition seealso">
<p class="admonition-title">See also</p>
<dl class="simple">
<dt>Module <a class="reference internal" href="tokenize.html#module-tokenize" title="tokenize: Lexical scanner for Python source code."><code class="xref py py-mod docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">tokenize</span></code></a></dt><dd><p>Lexical scanner for Python source code.</p>
</dd>
</dl>
</div>
</section>
            <div class="clearer"></div>
          </div>
        </div>
      </div>
      <div class="sphinxsidebar" role="navigation" aria-label="main navigation">
        <div class="sphinxsidebarwrapper">
  <div>
    <h4>Previous topic</h4>
    <p class="topless"><a href="tokenize.html"
                          title="previous chapter"><code class="xref py py-mod docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">tokenize</span></code> — Tokenizer for Python source</a></p>
  </div>
  <div>
    <h4>Next topic</h4>
    <p class="topless"><a href="pyclbr.html"
                          title="next chapter"><code class="xref py py-mod docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">pyclbr</span></code> — Python module browser support</a></p>
  </div>
  <div role="note" aria-label="source link">
    <h3>This Page</h3>
    <ul class="this-page-menu">
      <li><a href="../bugs.html">Report a Bug</a></li>
      <li>
        <a href="https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/main/Doc/library/tabnanny.rst"
            rel="nofollow">Show Source
        </a>
      </li>
    </ul>
  </div>
        </div>
<div id="sidebarbutton" title="Collapse sidebar">
<span>«</span>
</div>
      </div>
      <div class="clearer"></div>
    </div>  
    <div class="related" role="navigation" aria-label="related navigation">
      <h3>Navigation</h3>
      <ul>
        <li class="right" style="margin-right: 10px">
          <a href="../genindex.html" title="General Index"
             >index</a></li>
        <li class="right" >
          <a href="../py-modindex.html" title="Python Module Index"
             >modules</a> |</li>
        <li class="right" >
          <a href="pyclbr.html" title="pyclbr — Python module browser support"
             >next</a> |</li>
        <li class="right" >
          <a href="tokenize.html" title="tokenize — Tokenizer for Python source"
             >previous</a> |</li>
          <li><img src="../_static/py.svg" alt="Python logo" style="vertical-align: middle; margin-top: -1px"/></li>
          <li><a href="https://www.python.org/">Python</a> »</li>
          <li class="switchers">
            <div class="language_switcher_placeholder"></div>
            <div class="version_switcher_placeholder"></div>
          </li>
          <li>
              
          </li>
    <li id="cpython-language-and-version">
      <a href="../index.html">3.12.3 Documentation</a> »
    </li>
          <li class="nav-item nav-item-1"><a href="index.html" >The Python Standard Library</a> »</li>
          <li class="nav-item nav-item-2"><a href="language.html" >Python Language Services</a> »</li>
        <li class="nav-item nav-item-this"><a href=""><code class="xref py py-mod docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">tabnanny</span></code> — Detection of ambiguous indentation</a></li>
                <li class="right">
                    
    <div class="inline-search" role="search">
        <form class="inline-search" action="../search.html" method="get">
          <input placeholder="Quick search" aria-label="Quick search" type="search" name="q" id="search-box" />
          <input type="submit" value="Go" />
        </form>
    </div>
                     |
                </li>
            <li class="right">
<label class="theme-selector-label">
    Theme
    <select class="theme-selector" oninput="activateTheme(this.value)">
        <option value="auto" selected>Auto</option>
        <option value="light">Light</option>
        <option value="dark">Dark</option>
    </select>
</label> |</li>
            
      </ul>
    </div>  
    <div class="footer">
    © 
      <a href="../copyright.html">
    
    Copyright
    
      </a>
     2001-2024, Python Software Foundation.
    <br />
    This page is licensed under the Python Software Foundation License Version 2.
    <br />
    Examples, recipes, and other code in the documentation are additionally licensed under the Zero Clause BSD License.
    <br />
    
      See <a href="/license.html">History and License</a> for more information.<br />
    
    
    <br />
    The Python Software Foundation is a non-profit corporation.
<a href="https://www.python.org/psf/donations/">Please donate.</a>
<br />
    <br />
      Last updated on Apr 09, 2024 (13:47 UTC).
    
      <a href="/bugs.html">Found a bug</a>?
    
    <br />
    Created using <a href="https://www.sphinx-doc.org/">Sphinx</a> 7.2.6.
    </div>
  </body>
</html>
 |