Re: [PATCHv3] git apply: option to ignore whitespace differences

[Giuseppe Bilotta <giuseppe.bilotta@gmail.com>]

On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 10:39 AM, Junio C Hamano<gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
> 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.

No, I'm just assuming that the lines should have consistent whitespace

> 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.

Consistency should go the way of the context lines. So if the
convention changed and you're backporting changes, the changes would
use the old convention on the old codebase, and the new convention on
the new codebase, because that's what the context lines would direct
the new lines to.

Of course, this is all very abstract reasoning because I don't even
think the feature can be implemented at all robustly (too much 'AI'
work, IMO).

-- 
Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta