# Emacs users should know about julia-max-block-lookback
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/emacs-users-should-know-about-julia-max-block-lookback/10068
**Category:** General Usage
**Tags:** editors, emacs
**Created:** [March 30, 2018, 4:40am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/emacs-users-should-know-about-julia-max-block-lookback/10068 "2018-03-30T04:40:37Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@purplishrock](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/purplishrock)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2018, 4:40am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/emacs-users-should-know-about-julia-max-block-lookback/10068/1 "2018-03-30T04:40:37Z")
yeah- don’t use 5000. that’s too small a number.
10000 is better.
mystery of why my indentation was failing in the middle of a file solved.
in emacs’ julia mode
```julia
(defcustom julia-max-block-lookback 5000
"When indenting, don't look back more than this
many characters to see if there are unclosed blocks.
This variable has a moderate effect on indent performance if set too
high, but stops indenting in the middle of long blocks if set too low."
:type 'integer
:group 'julia)
```
edit: backticks + which editor it is (doesn’t everybody use emacs ?)
---
### Author:  [@dpsanders](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/dpsanders)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2018, 5:53am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/emacs-users-should-know-about-julia-max-block-lookback/10068/2 "2018-03-30T05:53:56Z")
What is the context here? Which editor?
---
### Author:  [@Tamas\_Papp](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Tamas_Papp)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2018, 6:24am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/emacs-users-should-know-about-julia-max-block-lookback/10068/3 "2018-03-30T06:24:56Z")
Possibly Emacs.
@purplishrock, please quote with [backticks](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/psa-how-to-quote-code-with-backticks/7530). Also, cf [this issue](https://github.com/JuliaEditorSupport/julia-emacs/issues/5). I just made a comment there and will make a PR after some discussion.
---
### Author:  [@purplishrock](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/purplishrock)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2018, 3:41pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/emacs-users-should-know-about-julia-max-block-lookback/10068/4 "2018-03-30T15:41:31Z")
great! thanks for linking that issue.
i think 20000 would make a good default.
the largest file i have in my current project is 22000 characters and i consider it to be too large and in needing of some refactoring.