where to paste large blocks of code / text? [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
How do I get my code blocks formatted?

where should we post large chunks of code that we don't want to clog up our posts?

Is there a way to make a scrollable code block? Or do we have to use external website like pastebin?

Second question - is there a more reliable way to paste code blocks? I'm finding it difficult to paste code on SO sometimes.. it will sometimes only take the 'middle chunk' of my code block as code, no matter what I do or how hard I indent or where i put the < code > blocks... any advise??

Answer 1

Answer 2

Regarding scrolling code blocks:

If you need that much space for the code on which you're asking a question, you probably have a larger problem. Generally speaking, if I have to read your code for 5 or 10 or 20 minutes to understand what's going on, I'm not going to answer your question. It's essentially the "big wall of text" problem, but with syntax highlighting.

My recommendation is to find the smallest working set of code possible which reproduces the error, and paste that in instead. This helps those of us who might want to answer by giving us only what we need (better signal-to-noise ratio), and it helps you by not (potentially) exposing more of your (or your company's) code than is critically needed.

Answer 3

After you paste the code block, select it, then hit the code button:

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Answer 4

Very large code blocks automatically scroll both horizontally and vertically. They still take up a lot of vertical space before they scroll, though, so your post may still appear pretty cluttered.

In general I've suggested pasting only tiny excerpts of code, with links to pastebin or similar services where the larger pieces of code exist to put the small post into context.

Regarding your second question, Code blocks must be indented by 4 spaces on every line. The editing bar has a code icon (looks like a small block of 1's and 0's) to help with this. Paste your code, then select it in the editing box, and press the code icon. It'll indent everything you've selected by 4 spaces, and it will show up correctly.

Unfortunately using <code> and other HTML tags may fail due to the use of < and > symbols in the code, so the best way is to indent everything 4 spaces.