[darcs-users] Whitespace adjustment patch type?

[Ashley Moran]

On 14 Apr 2009, at 06:57, Trent W. Buck wrote:

> 1. Add Emacs and vim noise to the bottom of each file, so that
>    people using these editors automatically get the right thing,
>    even if their global defaults are wrong.  For example

I use TextMate, and I don't think there's an equivalent for this.  But  
what I'm actually describing is more about lining up existing data,  
than enforcing whitespace rules.  Another example, this file:

class Response
   include DataMapper::Resource

   property :id,       Serial
   property :response, Integer,  :nullable => false
   property :made_at,  Time,     :nullable => false

   # ...
end

Is lined up for readability.  But if someone adds the line:

class Response
   include DataMapper::Resource

   property :id,       Serial
   property :response, Integer,  :nullable => false
   property :made_at,  Time,     :nullable => false
   property :some_really_long_name, String

   # ...
end


the formatting is thrown, and all the lines need reformatting:

class Response
   include DataMapper::Resource

   property :id,                    Serial
   property :response,              Integer,  :nullable => false
   property :made_at,               Time,     :nullable => false
   property :some_really_long_name, String

   # ...
end


which would conflict with an unrelated change to, say, the "response"  
property (eg)

class Response
   include DataMapper::Resource

   property :id,       Serial
   property :response, Integer,  :nullable => false, :default => 0
   property :made_at,  Time,     :nullable => false, :default => ...

   # ...
end

This sort of thing happens to me *all the time*.  Maybe it's more  
prevalent in some languages than others?  (Almost everything I do is  
in Ruby.)


>  2. If it gets to be a real problem, add a pre-commit hook that  
> refuses
>     to commit / push patches that contain "wrong" whitespace.
>     Something like,
>
>     darcs setpref test ! grep -r --exclude-dir _darcs \\t .

Again, that sort of thing could be useful.  (One person I work with  
has an interest in a script that checks for trailing whitespace.)  But  
it's actually a separate issue, as it's about universal rules, rather  
than local formatting.

Thanks
Ashley

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