How do I indent n spaces in emacs?

Question

I want to indent and entire region n spaces to the right or left. I can do this in some modes with C-c > and C-c <, but I'd like to do this in general.

If I need to change my .emacs in order to make this efficient (with a keyboard shortcut like that above) that's fine.

Answer 1

What works for me is: select region and then C-u <number of spaces> C-x TAB

Update

@Eric We could define a function and bind to a keyboard short cut, e.g. C-x C-TAB. Try adding this to your emacs config.

(defun insert-tabs (n)   "Inserts N number of tabs"   (interactive "nNumber of tabs: ")   (dotimes (i n)     (indent-for-tab-command)))  (global-set-key [?\C-x \C-tab] 'insert-tabs) 

Answer 2

The key part of Sandro's answer is the call to indent-rigidly.

C-x TAB (translated from C-x <tab>) runs the command indent-rigidly, which is an interactive compiled Lisp function in `indent.el'.  It is bound to C-x TAB.  (indent-rigidly start end arg)  Indent all lines starting in the region sideways by arg columns. Called from a program, takes three arguments, start, end and arg. You can remove all indentation from a region by giving a large negative arg. 

So, mark region, enter numeric arg, press C-x TAB.