Successfully configured Howl to detect indentation from opened file - next steps?

[cloudrac3r]

Files scattered around my computer have many different kinds of indentation. I want to detect what kind of indentation the file already uses and then use that for future editing.

After poking around the documentation and MoonScript for the first time I managed to get this working. I don't know whether it's good form or anything but it seems to work. Maybe this will be helpful for future readers.

set_indentation_for_buffer = (parameters) ->
  b = parameters.buffer
  -- find the first line that starts with whitespace
  i = 1
  while b.lines[i] != nil
    starting_spaces = string.match b.lines[i].text, '%s*'
    i = i + 1
    if 0 == string.len starting_spaces
      continue

    -- found a line that starts with whitespace, the whitespace part is in the variable starting_spaces
    indent_char = starting_spaces[1]
    -- if indentation is tabs
    if indent_char == '\t'
      -- set to tabs mode without editing default widths
      b.config.use_tabs = true
      log.warn 'indenting using tabs with default width'
    -- if indentation is spaces
    elseif indent_char == ' '
      -- load width from line
      width = string.len starting_spaces
      b.config.use_tabs = false
      b.config.indent = width
      b.config.tab_width = width
      log.warn "indenting using spaces with width #{width}" -- old debug values: due to line '#{starting_spaces}' of '#{b.lines[i-1].text}'"
    return

howl.signal.connect 'file-opened', set_indentation_for_buffer
howl.signal.connect 'buffer-reloaded', set_indentation_for_buffer

This does rely on tab-width and indent global config values both being the same, which they aren't by default.

I think this should be a standard feature included with all code editors. Would it be possible to make this pretty enough to include it in the main codebase?