On 2009-11-25 17:49:39 +0100, Richard Guenther wrote: > On Wed, 25 Nov 2009, Richard Kenner wrote: > > Why the latter? I agree with the problems this can cause, but if > > they can't be fixed by removing it from the database, why revert > > it? All things being equal, trailing blanks in fact aren't a good > > idea. > > Because it makes branch merging a nightmare and all patches people > keep are hosed and won't apply anymore.
Except if patches come from some web page (e.g. mailing-list archives) where trailing spaces are stripped out. In that case, patches will magically apply without any problem, whereas before the change they wouldn't. :) I've had such problems in the past with other projects, where I was told to apply some patch only available on the web, but it wouldn't apply since the source had trailing whitespace and the patch didn't (because some tool not specifically written to handle patches stripped such whitespace). -- Vincent Lefèvre <vinc...@vinc17.net> - Web: <http://www.vinc17.net/> 100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <http://www.vinc17.net/blog/> Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Arénaire project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)
