Re: tabs vs. spaces in source code

[Patrick McCarty]

On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 09:58:26AM -0700, Mark Polesky wrote:
> 
> Also, can we list all of the possible situations where we need to
> retain tabs? Ian mentioned .make files; the last time this came up
> Patrick McCarty mentioned something about demarcating syllables in
> lyrics, which I don't think I understand. (Patrick, can you give
> an example?)
> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-devel/2009-04/msg00080.html

This is actually an email from Dana Emery in response to me.

I don't think the lyric issue is relevant though, because IIRC
LilyPond treats a tab between two syllables as a single space.

> But even in such cases, as long as my tab-width matches the
> tab-widths in the source, tabs2spaces should be fine. Is it
> correct to say that git (or savannah) translates all tabs to 8
> spaces without exception?

The commitdiffs are sometimes off (I don't know why), but the "raw"
sources and "blobs" always show tabs converted into 8 spaces.

One thing you could do right now, without awaiting approval, is to
check for lines that have tabs *after* spaces at the beginning.  These
should be converted to tabs *followed* by spaces.

-Patrick