Re: M-x indent-region not working (?)

[guanxi]

Barry Margolin <barry.margolin@level3.com> wrote in message 
news:<IsTYa.58$7R.33@news.level3.com>...
> In article <6d7a61c9.0308080936.244dbc97@posting.google.com>,
> guanxi <guanxi_i@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >In text mode, if I select these regions and type C-M-\, I get the
> >following results.  In none of these examples does Emacs behave as if
> >I typed TAB at the beginning of each line -- is there somthing I
> >misunderstand?
> 
> What is it you really want to accomplish?  Maybe indent-rigidly is the
> function you really want.


indent-rigidly might be a workaround, but it's cumbersome for a few reasons:
   - It doesn't do indent-relative, which is what I really need
   - Using the numeric argument (which defaults to 1), it takes many keystrokes


What *is* indent-region doing?  Can anyone define it?


Thanks for your help; it is much appreciated.