I can't post my question because of the "indentation"! How do I fix this?

Question

I entered over 100 lines of code for my question, and then pressed "Submit" on Stack Overflow. The website gave me an error, saying that my code was formatted wrong. It suggested that I use the Ctrl+K shortcut or the code button to format it. It also said to use indents of 4 spaces.

Initially, I had indented 10 times and was using a 2-space indentation style. I tried cutting the initial indentation to 4, and it didn't work. Then, I changed my nesting style to 4-spaces. That didn't work either. I tried putting the code in backquotes. That didn't work. I highlighted everything, pressed Ctrl+K....didn't work. Pressed Ctrl+K twice...didn't work either.

How can I get my question online?

http://pastebin.com/ugYfbupR (Note: The commented lines were not initially commented. I added them because I thought it would be easier to read on the pastebin.)

Update

The issue has recurred with medium font size. Here's a paste of an answer I have tried to post that has returned the same error message:

Please note that I haven't accommodated any pastebin standards for coding, and this is the post as I initially intended it to appear: http://pastebin.com/GDBMKN0R

Answer 1

For lines that you want to be flush up against the margin, you indent by 4 spaces. Like so:

int foo();

Then you can indent subsequent lines by at least 4 spaces, but up to however many you like. So if you normally use the ratio of 1 tab = 3 spaces, then you can do this:

int foo()
{
   return 42;    // indented 7 spaces (the initial 4, plus 3 for my tab)
}

And so on for however many levels of indentation that you have. You would literally have something that looked like this in the edit window (notice the space on the left margin—exactly 4 characters or more):

    int foo()
    {
       int firstNumber = 12;
       int secondNumber = 3;

       // This function does absolutely nothing useful.
       if (true)
       {
           return firstNumber + secondNumber;
       }
    }

Also note that you can use the "code format" icon in the toolbar to do this automatically. It's the one that looks like a pair of curly braces ({}). Select your entire code block, and then click it. BAM!

Selecting the code block and pressing Ctrl+K has the same effect.

Note also that this is a toggle. If the code is already indented then using the icon or keyboard shortcut will remove the indentation.

Answer 2

Copied and pasted directly from linked PasteBin page.

To make this work, the top two lines needed to be indented with 4 spaces, and the comment about 1/3 of the way down needed to be indented with 4 spaces as well.

Both comments were flush against the actual left-hand margin, when they need to be indented 4 spaces in the editor in order to be flush against the left-hand margin of the code block.

Anyway, you can edit this answer and copy and paste what I've done into your Stack Overflow question...

<!-- Pasted for StackOverflowMeta. -->
<!-- I have a huge XML document formatted very much like this (36 lines): -->

<doc>
    <info_type1>
        <element_type1a>
            not_unique_data
        </element_type1a>
        <element_type1b>
            unique_data
        </element_type1b>
        <element_type2a>
            not_unique_data
        </element_type2a>
        <element_type2b>
            not_unique_data
        </element_type2b>
        <element_type2c lang="fr">
            not_unique_data
        </element_type2c>
        .
        .
        .
        <element_typeNxM>
            not_unique_data
        </element_typeNxM>
    </info_type1>
    <info_type2>
        <element_type1a>
            repeat_data_info_type1_element1a
        </element_type1a>
        <element_type2a>
            not_unique_data
        </element_type2a>
    </info_type2>
    .
    .
    .
    <info_typeN>
        <descendants></descendants>
    </info_typeN>
</doc>

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    <table id="element_type1">
        <element_type1a id="1">
            unique_data
        </element_type1a>
        <element_type1b id="2">
            unique_data
        </element_type1b>
        .
        .
        .
        <element_type1N id="M">
            unique_data
        </element_type1N>
    </table>

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            unique_data
        </element_type2a>
        <element_type2b id="2">
            unique_data
        </element_type2b>
        .
        .
        .
        <element_type2N id="M">
            unique_data
        </element_type2N>
    </table>

    <table id="element_type2_fr">
        <element_type2a lang="fr" id="1">
            unique_data
        </element_type2a>
        <element_type2b lang="fr" id="2">
            unique_data
        </element_type2>
        .
        .
        .
        <element_type2N lang="fr" id="M"> <!-- There are five languages-- >
            unique_data
        </element_type2N>
    </table>
    .
    .
    .
    <table id="element_typeN">
        <descendants></descendants>
    </table>
</datatables>

<intermediary_tables>
    <table id="intermediary_table_type1xtype2">
        <element id="1">
            <type1ID>1</type1ID>
            <type2ID>1</type2ID>
        </element>
        <element id="2">
            <type1ID>1</type1ID>
            <type2ID>2</type2ID>
        </element>
        <element id="3">
            <type1ID>2</type1ID>
            <type2ID>1</type2ID>
        </element>
        <element id="4">
            <type1ID>2</type1ID>
            <type2ID>2</type2ID>
        </element>
        .
        .
        .
        <element id="N">
            <type1ID>M</type1ID>
            <type2ID>Z</type2ID>
        </element_type2N>
    </table>

    <table id="intermediary_table_typeMxtypeN">
        <descendants></descendants>
    </table>
</intermediary_tables>