It could work by adding a new alignment tab character, like & in TeX. TeX tables look like name & value & comment \\ long name here & 1 & one\\ x &

It could work by adding a new alignment tab character, like & in TeX. TeX tables look like name & value & comment \\ long name here & 1 & one\\ x & 2 & two \\ and the columns line up at the & characters by adding suitable whitespace. Imagine some control character that you could insert in source code: next&Ancestor &= current->next; previous&Ancestor &= null; and the corresponding parts would line up in consecutive blocks, like elastic tab stops but even inside words by stretching the existing whitespace around the words.