Re: [PATCH v2] ws: add new tab-between-non-ws check

From: Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org>
Date: Jan 8, 2026, 09:01 UTC
Message-ID: <dcd87fc4-6514-4146-9e44-1276bd739d2f@kdbg.org>
In-Reply-To: <d3f26459-d828-4d01-8c38-ce754e5cc576@kdbg.org>

Am 07.01.26 um 18:33 schrieb Johannes Sixt:

Show 18 quoted lines

> Am 07.01.26 um 02:30 schrieb Adrian Ratiu:
>> The check is a bit complex because we want to detect places where
>> a SP was intended (HT can expand to more than one display column),
>> so we need to count both the display columns (col) and the string
>> character columns (i) to determine if a HT looks identical to a SP
>> or can cause confusion.
>>
>> Highlighting support for tools like git diff/show/log is added, as
>> well as git apply --whitespace=fix capability.
>>
>> The middle section of the line used to be assumed non-highlighted,
>> which is obviously not true anymore, so we split its logic into a
>> separate function named emit_middle_section().
>>
>> The new check is enabled for Documentation/**/*.adoc, where these
>> kinds of mistakes were seen in practice. It can also be enabled in
>> other locations where it can be useful, by adding to the relevant
>> attributes file.

This makes me wonder how useful this check is. Yes, I has happened that I didn't spot at TAB that should have been a SP, but perhaps a handful of times in my career. Compare this to the many times that the other kinds of whitespace errors happened.

Applying the rule to all documentation files is questionable: I can't format a table with TAB characters between columns reliably, because if a column happens to be 7 characters wide, the TAB at the 8th position would be diagnosed, but I certainly do *not* want it to be replaced by a SP. Yet, I might want legitimate cases outside tables to be diagnosed, so...

Maybe I'm too much of a devil's advocate here...

-- Hannes