sisennystapa

Sisennystapa is a Finnish term referring to the convention used to indent text or blocks within a document or source code. The aim of a sisennystapa is to visually structure information, indicate hierarchy, and improve readability.

In prose and typography, indentation marks the start of a new paragraph or a quoted section. Different style guides specify how much to indent and when to use hanging indent for bibliographies or lists. In practice, many writers use a consistent beginning-of-paragraph indentation, while block formatting may prefer no indent with line spacing to separate paragraphs in modern layouts.

In programming and data formatting, sisennystapa describes how code blocks or data structures are indented. Some languages rely on indentation to define blocks (for example Python), while others use braces or keywords and rely on indentation for readability only. Teams often adopt a standard value, such as a tab or a fixed number of spaces per level, to ensure uniform appearance.

Historically, indentation has been a typographic device in printed text for centuries. In computing, the concept grew with editors and programming languages, becoming a central element of code style guides and linters.

Related concepts include whitespace handling, code style, and paragraph formatting.