How to unindent code blocks?

Question

For indenting there's no problem. I enter the visual-block mode, select the block, enter insert mode, press ctrl-t (or just press tab), exit the visual-block mode, and the whole block is indented.

So, for the following code:

def my_function():
print('entering my_function')
print('leaving my_function')

Results in:

def my_function():
    print('entering my_function')
    print('leaving my_function')

Taking this last piece of code, if I follow the same steps as described in the first paragraph, but pressing ctrl-d instead of ctrl-t, the result is the following:

def my_function():
    print('entering my_function')
print('leaving my_function')

Even if select both lines in the visual-block mode, only the one on which I apply the unindent command gets affected.

Answer 1

You don't need to enter insert mode via visual-block mode to indent/outdent multiple lines: you can do it directly from visual mode by pressing > for indent and < for outdent. (See :help v_< and :help v_>)

To indent multiple levels, you can either repeat the operation by pressing . or pass a count to the </> command.

Answer 2

This is quite easy also: let's suppose we want to remove the extra tab space in our bock code of the lines 2 and 3

1 def my_function():
2         print('entering my_function')
3         print('leaving my_function')

Steep one: enter in visual mode (Ctrl+V) and use arrows keys for select a four spaces width area like this:

1 def my_function():
2     ████print('entering my_function')
3     ████print('leaving my_function')

Steep two: just press d:

1 def my_function():
2     print('entering my_function')
3     print('leaving my_function')

-Tadaa!