# @gwhitney/detect-indent

> Detect the indentation of code (commonjs fork)

Latest version **7.0.2** (published 2025-12-08) · MIT license · 0 weekly downloads

## Install

```sh
npm install @gwhitney/detect-indent
pnpm add @gwhitney/detect-indent
yarn add @gwhitney/detect-indent
bun add @gwhitney/detect-indent
```

## Health

**Score 55/100 (C)** — status: stable.

Positive: has types; no vulnerabilities; high quality score.

Warnings: low downloads; no esm support.

## Facts

| | |
|---|---|
| Version | 7.0.2 |
| Published | 2025-12-08 |
| First published | 2022-11-22 |
| Weekly downloads | 0 |
| License | MIT |
| TypeScript types | bundled |
| Module format | CommonJS |
| Node | >=12.20 |
| Dependencies | 0 |
| Unpacked size | 10.3 KB |
| Known vulnerabilities | 0 |
| Install scripts | no |
| GitHub stars | 0 |
| Author | Sindre Sorhus |
| Maintainers | gwhitney |
| Keywords | indent, indentation, detect, infer, identify, code, string, text, source, space, tab |

## Links

- npm: https://www.npmjs.com/package/@gwhitney/detect-indent
- Repository: https://github.com/gwhitney/detect-indent
- Homepage: https://github.com/gwhitney/detect-indent#readme
- Issues: https://github.com/gwhitney/detect-indent/issues
- npm.io page: https://npm.io/package/@gwhitney/detect-indent

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## Recent versions

- 7.0.2 (latest) — 2025-12-08
- 7.0.1 — 2022-11-22

## README

# detect-indent

> Detect the indentation of code (commonjs fork)

> **NOTE:** This is a fork of sindresorhus/detect-indent modified solely
> to revert to providing CommonJS exports. It was created only to provide
> an upgrade path for detect-indent in the `pnpm` Node package manager.
> It is intended to be kept in sync with the upstream `detect-indent` and
> use identical version numbers. The creator of this fork neither endorses
> nor criticizes the convention decisions on the part of the maintainers/
> authors of `pnpm` and `detect-indent` that led to the necessity of this
> fork.

Pass in a string of any kind of text and get the indentation.

## Use cases

- Persisting the indentation when modifying a file.
- Have new content match the existing indentation.
- Setting the right indentation in your editor.

## Install

```sh
npm install detect-indent
```

## Usage

Here we modify a JSON file while persisting the indentation:

```js
const fs = require('node:fs');
const detectIndent = require('detect-indent');

/*
{
    "ilove": "pizza"
}
*/
const file = fs.readFileSync('foo.json', 'utf8');

// Tries to detect the indentation and falls back to a default if it can't
const indent = detectIndent(file).indent || '    ';

const json = JSON.parse(file);

json.ilove = 'unicorns';

fs.writeFileSync('foo.json', JSON.stringify(json, undefined, indent));
/*
{
    "ilove": "unicorns"
}
*/
```

## API

Accepts a string and returns an object with stats about the indentation:

- `type` {'tab' | 'space' | undefined} - The type of indentation. It is `undefined` if no indentation is detected.
- `amount` {number} - The amount of indentation. For example, `2`.
- `indent` {string} - The actual indentation.

## Algorithm

The current algorithm looks for the most common difference between two consecutive non-empty lines. Single-space indentations and changes are ignored by default to prevent common false positives from comment alignment.

In the following example, even if 4-space indentation appears 3 times while 2-space appears only 2 times, the 2-space indentation is detected because there are 4 indent changes of 2 spaces vs only 2 changes of 4 spaces:

```css
html {
  box-sizing: border-box;
}

body {
  background: gray;
}

p {
    line-height: 1.3em;
    margin-top: 1em;
    text-indent: 2em;
}
```

[Source.](https://medium.com/@heatherarthur/detecting-code-indentation-eff3ed0fb56b#3918)

Furthermore, if there are multiple indent differences with the same usage count, the indentation with the most lines is selected.

In the following example, the indentation is detected as 4-spaces:

```css
body {
  background: gray;
}

p {
    line-height: 1.3em;
    margin-top: 1em;
    text-indent: 2em;
}
```

## Related

- [detect-indent-cli](https://github.com/sindresorhus/detect-indent-cli) - CLI for this module
- [detect-newline](https://github.com/sindresorhus/detect-newline) - Detect the dominant newline character of a string
- [detect-indent-rs](https://github.com/stefanpenner/detect-indent-rs) - Rust port
- [detect-indent-py](https://github.com/Ethan-Vanderheijden/detect-indent-py) - Python port

---
_Source: https://npm.io/package/@gwhitney/detect-indent · Machine-readable twin of the npm.io package page. Health data is recomputed on every publish._