From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2009 08:39:22 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCHv3] git apply: option to ignore whitespace differences
Message-ID: <7vws5rx4qt.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <cb7bb73a0907290120x72d0ae99p7cfdd2b88264a24a@mail.gmail.com>

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

> I was thinking more about consistency than 'correctness'  in this
> case, actually. Typical scenario would be: patch is created for a file
> using a given whitespace convention (e.g. 4 spaces). File is updated
> to match the rest of the project (tabs). Patch would now introduce the
> wrong whitespace convention for the new lines.

You are assuming that the patch is always based on a wrong convention and
the target always uses the right convention.  In general, however, you
cannot tell which way the "consisitency" should go --- often you have to
apply a patch based on a fixed codebase to an older version.