Custom indent width for BeautifulSoup .prettify()

Question

Is there any way to define custom indent width for .prettify() function? From what I can get from it\'s source -

def prettify(self, encoding=No         


        

Answer 1

As far as I can tell, this feature is not built in, as there are a handful of solutions out there for this problem.

Assuming you are using BeautifulSoup 4, here are the solutions I came up with

Hardcode it in. This requires minimal changes, this is fine if you don't need the indent to be different in different circumstances:

myTab = 4 # add this
if pretty_print:
   # space = (' ' * (indent_level - 1))
    space = (' ' * (indent_level - myTab))
    #indent_contents = indent_level + 1
    indent_contents = indent_level + myTab 

Another problem with the previous solution is that the text content wont be indented entirely consistently, but attractively, still. If you need a more flexible/consistent solution, you can just modify the class.

Find the prettify function and modify it as such (it is located in the Tag class in element.py):

#Add the myTab keyword to the functions parameters (or whatever you want to call it), set it to your preferred default.
def prettify(self, encoding=None, formatter="minimal", myTab=2): 
    Tag.myTab= myTab # add a reference to it in the Tag class
    if encoding is None:
        return self.decode(True, formatter=formatter)
    else:
        return self.encode(encoding, True, formatter=formatter)

And then scroll up to the decode method in the Tag class and make the following changes:

if pretty_print:
    #space = (' ' * (indent_level - 1))
    space = (' ' * (indent_level - Tag.myTab))
    #indent_contents = indent_level + Tag.myTab 
    indent_contents = indent_level + Tag.myTab

Then go to the decode_contents method in the Tag class and make these changes:

#s.append(" " * (indent_level - 1))
s.append(" " * (indent_level - Tag.myTab))

Now BeautifulSoup('Text').prettify(myTab=4) will return:

    
        
            Text
        
    

**No need to patch BeautifulSoup class as it inherits the Tag class. Patching Tag class is sufficient enough to achieve the goal.