Re: [PATCH] new option --ignore-trailing-space-change for diff

[Paul Eggert]

Roland McGrath <address@hidden> writes:

> It's really just this bit:
>
>     if (ignore_white_space < IGNORE_SPACE_CHANGE)
>         bucket = &buckets[-1];
>
> that I don't really understand the meaning of.

That has to do with the handling of incomplete lines, i.e., lines at
the end of a file that don't have a trailing newline.  For
IGNORE_NO_WHITE_SPACE and IGNORE_TAB_EXPANSION this missing newline is
considered to be a significant difference, and such a line cannot
match any other line (except possibly an incomplete line at the end of
another line), so it is put into a separate spot in the hash table.
For IGNORE_SPACE_CHANGE and up, the difference is not considered to be
significant (it's as if the trailing newline were considered to be
white space).  -Z should be like IGNORE_SPACE_CHANGE here.

>> Yes.  Also, it is independent of -b.  
>
> No, it is a subset of -b.  Any difference that -Z ignores, -b ignores too.
> What case am I missing?

Sorry, you're right: my mistake.

> How about if I say it was part of my job at Red Hat?

Sounds good to me.  (You have multiple jobs?  sounds familiar....)
You probably should do the paperwork anyway, but I'm sure the FSF
will trust you on that.

> if you are willing to polish it all up and put it into diff
> yourself, then I would certainly appreciate that.

OK, let's do that.  Thanks again.