What is the opposite of indented (because "exdent[ed]" appears not to be a word)? [duplicate]

Solution 1:

A search for antonyms unearths Dan Bron's suggestion, outdent.

Outdent verb To indent negatively, bring towards the margin. By default, the summary tasks are bold and outdented, and the subtasks are indented beneath them. - wikitionary

The link also defines the noun form as hanging paragraph, but it would sound a little odd to say that the code block should be hung, not least because of the association between hanging code and buggy code.

Although the word outdent is not widely used, it has a credible reference, namely, Microsoft, which produces a word processor that is widely used:

You can also create a negative indent (also known as an outdent), which pulls the paragraph out toward the left margin.

If you are undoing an indent, the line would be unindented, as MatthewC notes. It would be odd, though to describe the very first line of code as unindented without prior indenting. For a typeset paragraph, outdent doesn't assume a prior indent, though calling it negatively indented sounds more fluent. In your case, namely, "where the first line is set further left than the remainder of the paragraph/block", if that first line starts in the same column as the line before it, you might simply say that it is not indented.

Take this block for example, with line numbers purely for reference:

1        void f() {
2            init();
3    // TODO: add exception-handling
4            helloWorld();
5        }

Line 1 is not indented, lines 2 and 4 are indented, line 3 is outdented or negatively indented, and line 5 is unindented.

Solution 2:

As a long time programmer, the only term I've ever heard used is unindented.

Unindent makes it clear that you are referring to the opposite of the word indent, and not referring to some type of formatting.

outdent sounds like a text formatting word, not a code formatting word.

Unindent is clear, and programmer-friendly.

Solution 3:

I don't believe there is a single-word adjective in common usage that describes what you want; I've always taken notes in this style, and if you said "outdented" to me (the closest thing, as others have pointed out) it would definitely take me a minute. Officially, this style is referred to as a hanging indent: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/H/hanging_indent.html

But I've never seen it in any form other than the noun, so you might have to reconstruct some sentences.