On Wed, Sep 02, 2009 at 11:44:18AM -0400, William Case wrote:
> Hi;
Hi Bill,
> I have just been reading Documentation/Coding Style for the 2.6 kernel.
> It goes on at length about when and when not to use white spaces.
>
> E.g.
> "Do not leave trailing white space at the ends of lines. Some editors
> with "smart" indentation will insert white space at the beginning of new
> lines as appropriate, so you can start typing the next line of code
> right away. ..... "
>
> In other places, people go to great lengths and use specialized programs
> to remove white spaces, especially trailing white spaces. Yet, I have
> read, in K&R and elsewhere, that 'C' compilers like gcc just ignore or
> throw out any unneeded white space.
>
> So, why the concern over extra white spaces in 'C' code?
The compiler won't care. It is the source code management tools that
will have a bit more difficulty. In particular, trailing whitespace
might not look any different to you on your screen, but it does look
different to diff(1), unless you use the "-B" and/or "-b" switches.
It can be a challenge to merge code if you have inadvertantly added
whitespace to existing, or to your own source code. I haven't looked at
the standards in a while, but it probably also has something to say
about leading whitespace being consistently spaces or tabs, but not
both, and a standard conversion for tabs to spaces.
Whitespace *is* very important in Python, but you haven't asked about
that...
> Regards Bill
slainte mhath, RGB
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