RE: tab character

[Ludwig, Mark]

Sure, but in a Makefile, you should be in Makefile mode (Major mode for editing 
Makefiles), and it inserts TAB characters....

Cheers,

Mark

From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+ludwig.mark=siemens.com@gnu.org 
[mailto:help-gnu-emacs-bounces+ludwig.mark=siemens.com@gnu.org] On Behalf Of 
Rustom Mody
Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2011 10:05 AM
To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
Subject: Re: tab character

On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 8:01 PM, Ludwig, Mark <ludwig.mark@siemens.com> wrote:
If you just want it to insert a TAB character every time, just map the key to 
self-insert-command.

Yes I gathered that this is the only way (or  C-q TAB).  Seems fairly low-level 
for such a basic usage...

Are you familiar with M-i that runs tab-to-tab-stop?  That might be what you 
want, too, especially if you want spaces inserted to 'equal' what the TAB 
character would do on a typewriter, for instance.

I need tab to be entered as tab without any questions or ambiguity (think 
makefiles?)
 
Hope this helps,

Mark

From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+ludwig.mark=siemens.com@gnu.org 
[mailto:help-gnu-emacs-bounces+ludwig.mark=siemens.com@gnu.org] On Behalf Of 
Rustom Mody
Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2011 8:45 AM
To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
Subject: tab character

The tab-always-indent docs say:

-----------------------------
Controls the operation of the TAB key.
If t, hitting TAB always just indents the current line.
If nil, hitting TAB indents the current line if point is at the left margin
or in the line's indentation, otherwise it inserts a \"real\" TAB character.
If `complete', TAB first tries to indent the current line, and if the line
was already indented, then try to complete the thing at point.

Some programming language modes have their own variable to control this,
e.g., `c-tab-always-indent', and do not respect this variable."
  :group 'indent
--------------------------------
Why is there nothing stronger than nil? IOW why is it so hard to just have tab 
be tab with no conditions?

In Miles Bader page on emacswiki http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/MilesBader
he has code for a literal-tab-mode.  So am I right in guessing that that is the 
only approach if one wants tab characters to be entered?