Replace inputed contents with spaces on each line like C-x r t of emacs. 4 white-spaces will be inserted by default. But you can change this stirng by specifying '-i' option'.

xrt.py

#! /usr/bin/env python
"""
===
xrt
===

Replace inputed contents with spaces on each line like C-x r t of emacs.
4 white-spaces will be inserted by default.
But you can change this stirng by specifying '-i' option'.

How to use
===========

Put this file into /usr/local/bin/ and run.
xrt.py takes user inputs from standard input::

    xrt.py
    Input some text
        Input some text

Or you can specify '-i' argument to set the inserted string::

    xrt.py -i '  '
    Input some text
      Input some text

When to use
===========

xrt.py is useful when you quote some string.
I created this tool to paste Skype log
into quoted string written by reStructuretText.

"""
import argparse
import sys


def insert_indent(base_text, indent):
    return '\n'.join([indent + line for line in base_text.splitlines()])


def run():
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description='Replace inputed contents'
                                                 ' with spaces on each line.')
    parser.add_argument('-i', '--indent', action='store',
                        default='    ', dest='indent',
                        help='String to insert to top of each line')
    opt = parser.parse_args()
    print(insert_indent(sys.stdin.read(), opt.indent))


if __name__ in ('main', '__main__'):
    run()