RE: yank without indentation?

[Drew Adams]

> Has anyone come up with a yank-without-indentation routine? Why am I
> always killing multi-line text with enormous left-hand whitespace, and
> wanting to yank it without that whitespace in place? Has anyone dealt
> with this?

This should do pretty much what you want.

(defun yank-sans-indent (&optional arg)
  "Like `yank', but remove indentation."
  (interactive "*P")
  (setq yank-window-start  (window-start)
        this-command       t)
  (push-mark (point))
  (insert-for-yank (string-trim (current-kill (cond ((listp arg) 0)
                                                    ((eq arg '-) -2)
                                                    (t (1- arg))))))
  (when (consp arg)
    (goto-char (prog1 (mark t)
                 (set-marker (mark-marker) (point) (current-buffer)))))
  (when (eq this-command t) (setq this-command  'yank-sans-indent))
  nil)

(defun string-trim (string)
  "Trim SPC and TAB chars from ends of STRING and each of its eols."
  (let* ((start    (progn (string-match "\\`[ \t]*" string)
                          (match-end 0)))
         (end      (progn (string-match "[ \t]*\\'" string start)
                          (match-beginning 0)))
         (trimmed  (substring string start end)))
    (replace-regexp-in-string "\\(\n\\)[ \t]+" "\\1" trimmed)))

(global-set-key "\C-y" 'yank-sans-indent)

(You can also bind `M-y' to a command that is `yank-pop' but with
references to `yank' replaced by `yank-sans-indent'.)

[If you want the string that is placed on the `kill-ring' to be the
complete selected text, instead of that text trimmed to remove
indentation, then you can use an alternative approach of placing
a `yank-handler' property on the first character, and define a
yank handler that trims the indenting whitespace at the time of
insertion.]