Re: [PATCHv3] git apply: option to ignore whitespace differences

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jul 28, 2009, 21:29 UTC
Message-ID: <7vljm84htf.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <1248814820-25367-1-git-send-email-giuseppe.bilotta@gmail.com>

Giuseppe Bilotta <giuseppe.bilotta@gmail.com> writes:

Show 7 quoted lines

> @@ -205,6 +209,9 @@ running `git apply --directory=modules/git-gui`.
>  Configuration
>  -------------
>  
> +apply.ignore-whitespace::
> +	Set this boolean configuration flag if you want to ignore whitespace
> +	differences to be ignored by default.

That's a strange sentence.

	When set to true, changes in amount of whitespace are ignored.

I am not happy with the name --ignore-whitespace.

Perhaps --ignore-space-change, to be consistent with a "git diff" option, would be more appropriate. Doing so has an added benefit of leaving the door open to add --ignore-all-space option to the patch application side later.

> +		/*
> +		 * Skip whitespace inside. We check for whitespace on
> +		 * both buffers because we don't want "a b" to match
> +		 * "ab"

		 * but that is only true when --ignore-space-change
                 * is in effect.
		 *
                 * If you want to match "if(a > b)" with "if (a > b)",
                 * please add --ignore-all-space option and use it.

;-)

If I am reading the patch correctly, use of this option always disables checks and corrections of whitespace errors. I personally feel that somebody who is willing to accept a patch that has whitespace breakages that needs this option would not care, but the documentation should warn about it at the minimum.

Needless to say, a lot better option is not to disable the checks and corrections at all. After all, this "ignore space change" option is about matching the common context lines and replaced/removed contents before the change, and checks and corrections are about added/replaced contents after the change. They should be orthogonal.