On 01/26/2011 10:53 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
David Simcha wrote:
Forgive my ignorance, but why is this such a big issue? Shouldn't any decent
programmer tool (diff utility, editor, IDE, etc.) be able to interpret CR, LF
and CR LF as effectively meaning the same thing and do what you mean? In the
context of source code noone ever wants to go to the beginning of the current
line. The only time it can become ambiguous is when a CR LF was actually
produced by two different edits with different settings (and is therefore
supposed to mean two newlines, not one) and even then it only mildly screws
up the whitespace.
Bottom line: I fail to see why different line endings should be such an issue
in the first place, unless we're using some overly strict or Stone Age tool
that favors absolute adherence to some specification over common sense. In
such cases it's more the tool that's the problem, not the source file. I
don't give a hoot which line ending anyone uses, because all my tools seem to
"just work" regardless, and I have absolutely no clue what line ending my IDE
is set up to use because I don't understand why it really matters in practice.
Good question. In all the software I've written, I've gone to some effort to
ensure that line endings of LF, CRLF, and CR are automatically taken care of.
I've been doing this for 30 years.
Why text processing programs on both sides of the fence *still* fail at this is
beyond comprehension:
1. Windows Notepad
2. meld
3. many diff programs
4. git
5. FreeBSD make
Indeed it's trivial (convert on input every line ending to a unique form that
could be at best unicode <LINE SEPARATOR> not to be accused of bias ;-), then
convert back to the current Os's form on output). Tons of PLs do that
transparently. I also cannot understand why any tool in the XXIth century does
not provide this feature (without even mentioning it, so trivial an issue it
is). Even less /programmer/ tools like git! Where's the point?
Denis
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