While reviewing a Python 3 script that inventories running services, you notice the author indented one line with a tab and the next with four spaces. Running the script immediately raises:
TabError: inconsistent use of tabs and spaces in indentation
The developer also wants to make the code conform to the PEP 8 style guide. Which modification will resolve the error and satisfy PEP 8 recommendations?
Convert the file's line endings to LF (Unix style); inconsistent CRLF endings are what trigger the TabError.
Replace every indentation level with a single tab character; PEP 8 requires tabs rather than spaces.
Replace every indentation level with exactly four space characters and remove all tabs.
Add a shebang of #!/usr/bin/env python -tt so Python automatically treats tabs as four spaces at runtime.
PEP 8 explicitly says to use four spaces per indentation level and warns that Python 3 forbids mixing tabs and spaces. Converting every indent to four ASCII spaces removes the mixed whitespace that triggers the TabError and matches the style guide. Switching to tabs alone might eliminate the runtime error, but it ignores PEP 8's preference for spaces. Changing line endings or adding the -tt option does not fix existing mixed indentation and therefore will not meet both goals.
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Why does Python 3 forbid mixing tabs and spaces for indentation?
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