Re: tab characters in the source code

[Anthony W. Youngman]

In message 
<address@hidden>, Han-Wen 
Nienhuys <address@hidden> writes
> On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 8:18 PM, Carl D. Sorensen <address@hidden> wrote:
>
> > > As to LY not accepting tabs, thats a shame, tabs should be treated as
> > > white space, along with <bel> <nul> <lf> <VT> and other now-disused
> > > characters from the days of teletypes which sometimes find their way into
> > > ascii files from odd unix and dos systems; this is done in the postscript
> > > language.  Except perhaps in lyrics, where they might well be used to
> > > demarcate syllables.
> >
> > LilyPond accepts tabs just fine; they're whitespace.  If you want to put tab
> > characters in your LilyPond source you can do so.
> >
> > Programming standards for LilyPond call for avoiding the tab character.
> > We're free to choose whatever programming conventions we want for our source
> > code.
>
> I don't think it is a standard, but I would not mind making it a standard.

Someone else will know more than me, but I think the linux kernel 
standards say "here's a pretty-printer definition, any patches should be 
cleaned up with this first".

If we can get a similar definition for lily, the standards can say "use 
it to clean up your code before submitting, and if you modify code that 
doesn't comply with the standard, submit your changes and the pretty 
print as two different patches".

That way, the code will tend to a standard, and if other people prefer 
to work with a different standard they can create their own pretty print 
definition and they'll just have to work as "pretty-print to my 
standard, modify, pretty-print to lily's standard, submit".
> Han-Wen
> (being trained to avoid tabs during daytime)
Cheers,
Wol
--
Anthony W. Youngman - address@hidden