Elastic Tabstop

Example

The following C program demonstrates how related code can be aligned using elastic tabstops, even when using a proportional font. The coloured backgrounds show the tabstop grouping.

#include

const float SQRT2	= 1.41421356;	/* square root of 2 */
const float PI	= 3.1416;	/* mathematical constant pi */

/* This blank line prevents the red and yellow tabstops from combining */

float volume_cylinder(	float radius,
	float height)

{
	float volume = PI * radius * radius * height;
	return volume;
}

int main
{
	float radius, height;
	for (height = 1.0; height <= 3.0; ++height)
		for (radius = 1.0; radius <= 3.0; ++radius)
			printf(	"Volume of cylinder of height %.0f and radius %.0f is %.2f.\n",
				height,
				radius,
				volume_cylinder(radius, height));
	return 0;
}

If the programmer, for example, changes the function name "volume_cylinder" to "volume" and constant name "PI" to "MATH_CONSTANT_PI", the code automatically realigns:

#include

const float SQRT2	= 1.41421356;	/* square root of 2 */
const float MATH_CONSTANT_PI	= 3.1416;	/* mathematical constant pi */

/* This blank line prevents the red and yellow tabstops from combining */

float volume(	float radius,
	float height)

{
	float volume = MATH_CONSTANT_PI * radius * radius * height;
	return volume;
}

int main
{
	float radius, height;
	for (height = 1.0; height <= 3.0; ++height)
		for (radius = 1.0; radius <= 3.0; ++radius)
			printf(	"Volume of cylinder of height %.0f and radius %.0f is %.2f.\n",
				height,
				radius,
				volume(radius, height));
	return 0;
}

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Elastic Tabstop - Example

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