How do I make Emacs auto-indent my C code?

Question

I\'m just starting to get a feel for emacs, but I am frustrated with it\'s tendency to not indent when I press the return key. I know if I press C-j it will do it, but I can\'t

Answer 1

copying: move to start, CTRL-space, move to end, ALT-W

pasting: CTRL-y

on unix: left mouse to copy, right mouse to paste

Answer 2

I set the return key to globally act as a new-line-and-intent in my ~/.emacs file:

(global-set-key "\C-m" 'newline-and-indent)

Works for me.

Answer 3

Try [enter], (kbd "enter") or (read-kbd-macro "enter"), they all do subtly different things ;)

Also, for me copy/pasting just works. Can you try running emacs -q, and see if it works? If it does, it may be a problem with your .emacs.

I also have:

(when window-system
  ;; use extended compound-text coding for X clipboard
  (set-selection-coding-system 'compound-text-with-extensions))

but that might do something else ;)

Answer 4

Have a look at emacswiki - autoindent

As suggested there, put following code in your .emacs

(defun set-newline-and-indent ()
  (local-set-key (kbd "RET") 'newline-and-indent))
(add-hook 'c-mode-hook 'set-newline-and-indent)

You can customize the variable C Default Styl. In your emacs go to Options->Customize Emacs->Specific Option, then type c-default-style and set to your choice. By doing this, you don't need to hit TAB. Type from start of the line and as you hit ";" , it will be automatically indented.

Hope this helps

Answer 5

The easy way to do that is to use electric-indent-mode. If you want to enable it manually, just do

M-x electric-indent-mode

In order to enable it automatically, say the following in your .emacs:

(electric-indent-mode)

This will be the default in Emacs 24.4.

Answer 6

If you want to indent the whole c/c++ file, you just do

1. mark everything: CTRL-x h
2. press TAB

That, btw, works also for xml, python code and other types.