Re: [PATCH] doc: fix merge-base ASCII art tab spacing

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Oct 22, 2016, 01:09 UTC
Message-ID: <20161022010918.knvbxwlnjdqedwni@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <D861234B3E78496DBA70EE63B2BCDB96@PhilipOakley>

On Fri, Oct 21, 2016 at 10:26:29PM +0100, Philip Oakley wrote:

Show 10 quoted lines

> > updating the source they work on.  Otherwise, the broken "doc-tool
> > stack" will keep producing broken output next time a source that
> > respects "tab is to skip to the next multiple of 8" rule is fed to
> > it, no?
> 
> By avoiding tabs *within the art* we would also be tolerant of those who may
> not have a set their tab spacing to 8 when viewing the raw text.
> 
> It's particularly the criss-cross diagram that needs fixed one way or
> another (for the doc/doctor differences).

I think the new asciidoctor correctly handles tabs within the art. The earlier diagrams begin each line with a tab (to mark the pre-formatted block), and then only some of the lines have additional tabs, and expect those tabs to expand to 8 characters to line up with the other bits (which is what caused a problem with earlier asciidoctor).

What is funny about that criss-cross diagram is that it actually chooses different markers on each line to start the art: sometimes tabs and sometimes spaces. And that seems to confuse even recent versions of asciidoctor.

It may be that asciidoctor is wrong here, but I have to admit we are venturing well into "what happens to work with asciidoc" territory, and the right solution is just fixing the diagram (i.e., your patch).

-Peff