Re: [PATCH] stripspace: Call U+0020 a "space" instead of a "blank"

From: Stefan Beller <sbeller@google.com>
Date: Feb 9, 2016, 22:53 UTC
Message-ID: <CAGZ79kao-DWwn2j4aO8ArSPHAX65KeL7NyD=ONkB6qjOrDZNSQ@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqvb5x1q01.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>

On Tue, Feb 9, 2016 at 2:24 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:

Show 10 quoted lines

> Alex Henrie <alexhenrie24@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> I couldn't find any other examples of people referring to this character
>> as a "blank".
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Alex Henrie <alexhenrie24@gmail.com>
>> ---
>
> Any comments on this from anybody other than the author that I
> missed to support this change?

I remember "blank" being used in my early days of computing.

The blank was somehow more accurate as it described the exact thing (i.e. char U+0020 as commonly produced via the space bar on the key board)

A space however could refer to any kind of indentation.
 * tabs would qualify for that
 * other tricks of your (wordprocessor-) editor would qualify for that
   (indent by 2 inches in footer section or other weeirdness)
 * any other character not using any ink in a printer[1]

[1] https://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/chars/spaces.html

Looking at that table in there, U+0020 is officially called "space", so I guess the patch is technically correct.

Orthogonal to this discussion, I'd suggest adding an "a" into the string

     N_("prepend a comment character and a {space, blank} to each line"),

Show 21 quoted lines

>
>>  builtin/stripspace.c | 2 +-
>>  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
>>
>> diff --git a/builtin/stripspace.c b/builtin/stripspace.c
>> index 7ff8434..15e716e 100644
>> --- a/builtin/stripspace.c
>> +++ b/builtin/stripspace.c
>> @@ -35,7 +35,7 @@ int cmd_stripspace(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
>>                           N_("skip and remove all lines starting with comment character"),
>>                           STRIP_COMMENTS),
>>               OPT_CMDMODE('c', "comment-lines", &mode,
>> -                         N_("prepend comment character and blank to each line"),
>> +                         N_("prepend comment character and space to each line"),
>>                           COMMENT_LINES),
>>               OPT_END()
>>       };
> --
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