Sometimes, you may want to reindent several lines of code at a time. One way to do this is to use the mark; when the mark is active and the region is non-empty, <TAB> indents every line within the region. In addition, Emacs provides several other commands for indenting large chunks of code:
indent-region).
To reindent the contents of a single parenthetical grouping,
position point before the beginning of the grouping and type
C-M-q. This changes the relative indentation within the
grouping, without affecting its overall indentation (i.e., the
indentation of the line where the grouping starts). The function that
C-M-q runs depends on the major mode; it is
indent-pp-sexp in Lisp mode, c-indent-exp in C mode,
etc. To correct the overall indentation as well, type <TAB>
first.
C-M-\ (indent-region) applies <TAB> to the region.
This is useful when Transient Mark mode is disabled (see Persistent Mark), because in that case <TAB> does not act on the region.
If you like the relative indentation within a grouping but not the indentation of its first line, move point to that first line and type C-u <TAB>. In Lisp, C, and some other major modes, <TAB> with a numeric argument reindents the current line as usual, then reindents by the same amount all the lines in the parenthetical grouping starting on the current line. It is clever, though, and does not alter lines that start inside strings. Neither does it alter C preprocessor lines when in C mode, but it does reindent any continuation lines that may be attached to them.
The command M-x indent-code-rigidly rigidly shifts all the
lines in the region sideways, like indent-rigidly does
(see Indentation Commands). It doesn't alter the indentation of
lines that start inside a string, unless the region also starts inside
that string. The prefix arg specifies the number of columns to
indent.