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('<root><child><desc>Text</desc></child></root>').prettify(myTab=4) will return:
<root>
<child>
<desc>
Text
</desc>
</child>
</root>
**No need to patch BeautifulSoup class as it inherits the Tag class. Patching Tag class is sufficient enough to achieve the goal.
