Re: [RFC] refer to post-patch lines in whitespace warnings

[Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>]

Daniel Barkalow <barkalow@iabervon.org> writes:

> When I rebase series with bad whitespace, I end up with unhelpful messages 
> like:
>
> .dotest/patch:412: trailing whitespace.
> -- 
> .dotest/patch:446: trailing whitespace.
> -- 
>
> These line numbers obviously refer to lines in a file that's been removed 
> by the time I can do anything about it. It seems to me like the message 
> would be more useful if, in the case where it leaves the working tree 
> modified with the non-compliant whitespace, it gave this location rather 
> than the patch's location (because, even if you have the patch still, 
> you'd need to revert it first in order to be able to apply a fixed version 
> anyway). Anybody see any problems with this theory?

I realize that I did not answer your primary question in the
previous response.

I think it is fine if you are thinking about _adding_ line
number of postimage (or preimage for that matter) to the warning
output, but I do not think we would want to remove the in-patch
line numbers we currently have and replace them with something
else.  I often very much appreciate the fact that these messages
precisely identify the problematic spots in the patch so that I
can go in and fix them in place before applying.