How can I quickly and easily format my code for SE sites' posts?

Question

I usually indent code with tabs, and every time I want to test a snippet before posting it to a SE site I have to reformat it manually before I can post it. Even when I don't use tabs, I need to indent every line with four whitespaces. Furthermore sometimes I have to add a line just to specify which language I'm using in the snippet. Then I have to select everything and copy it to the clipboard before pasting it to the post. How can I quickly and easily format my code for SE sites' posts?

Answer 1

SEcopy

SEcopy it's a bash script I wrote for myself which will read the content from a file or from the clipboard and format it for SE sites, copying the formatted content to the clipboard.

Features:

• Reads the the content from a file or from the clipboard
• Converts every TAB character to four whitespaces
• Indents all lines with four whitespaces
• Optionally adds a <!-- language: <lang-string> --> line
• Copies the formatted content to the clipboard

Upcoming in 0.03:

• Formatting of clipboard's content with language line insertion

Sample usage:

• Bound to a keystroke, can be used to very quickly select, copy, format and paste the formatted content of an opened document to a post (e.g. to select, copy, format and paste the content of an opened gedit document to a post: Ctrl+A + Ctrl+C + <keystroke> + Ctrl+V)

Source code:

#!/bin/bash

if [ "${1}" ]                                
then
    f1="`< "${1}"`"                            
else                                    
    f1="`xclip -selection clipboard -o`"                
fi
f2="`<<< "${f1}" sed "s/\t/    /g"`"                    
f3="`<<< "${f2}" sed "s/^/    /"`"                    
if [ "${2}" ]                                 
then
    f4="`<<< "${f3}" sed "1s/^/<!-- language: lang-${2} -->\n\n/"`"    
else                                    
    f4=${f3}                            
fi
<<< "${f4}" tee 2> /dev/null | xclip -selection clipboard        
echo "SEcopy: Copied to clipboard!"
exit

Installation (Ubuntu):

1. Install xclip (if not installed): sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install xclip
2. Download SEcopy: https://www.dropbox.com/s/jgdesc7szcg4cfq/secopy-0.02.tar.gz?dl=0
3. Extract the archive: mkdir ~/Downloads/secopy && tar xf ~/Downloads/secopy-0.02.tar.gz -C ~/Downloads/secopy
4. Mark install.sh as executable: chmod +x ~/Downloads/secopy/secopy-0.02/install.sh
5. Install SEcopy: ~/Downloads/seformat/seformat-0.01/install.sh

Removal (Ubuntu):

1. Mark uninstall.sh as executable: chmod +x ~/Downloads/secopy/secopy-0.02/install.sh
2. Uninstall SEcopy: ~/Downloads/secopy/secopy-0.02/uninstall.sh
3. Uninstall xclip (if not needed): sudo apt-get purge xclip
4. Remove the temporary folder: rm -rf ~/Downloads/secopy
5. Remove the archive: rm -rf ~/Downloads/secopy-0.02.tar.gz

Usage:

Usage:

secopy [<path_to_source_file> [<lang_string>]]

<path_to_file> = Path to the source file
<lang_string> = Language string defining the source file's language

If no <path_to_source_file> is specified, SEcopy will format the content of the clipboard.
If no <lang_string> is specified, SEcopy will not add a language defining line.

List of all the possible values for <lang_string>

Examples:

secopy
secopy ~/Desktop/MyBashScript.sh
secopy ~/Desktop/MyBashScript.sh bash

Input:

#!/bin/bash

if [ 1 ]
then
        echo This is an example.
done

Output #1: (file read from the clipboard)

    #!/bin/bash

    if [ 1 ]
    then
        echo This is an example.
    done

Output #2: (file read from a file)

    #!/bin/bash

    if [ 1 ]
    then
        echo This is an example.
    done

Output #3: (file read from a file)

<!-- language: lang-bash -->

    #!/bin/bash

    if [ 1 ]
    then
        echo This is an example.
    done

Answer 2

If you're just too lazy to indent a huge number of lines, you can select it and click on the {}-button in the panel above the text field where you enter your post.

Another possibility is to use the HTML tag pair <pre><code> ... </code></pre> for code formatting. It means "preformatted text" and "code" on the finally displayed site it is exactly the same as code blocks indented with 4 spaces, because those Markdown indentations are converted to exactly this HTML tag pair. Note that you should write the tags in the same line as the first (last) line of your code snippet, according to @EliahKagan.

Example (written with indentation to escape the HTML tags and make them visible!):

<pre><code># Here come some code lines
# ...
exit</code></pre>

Answer 3

I generally plan my questions in GEdit which can be set to convert tab indents to spaces. Set it to 4 spaces or whatever works for you and then highlight the code you want to share and hit tab. All indented and ready to past into your question or answer. On windows Notepad++ does something very similar.