From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1Jy2zd-0004Kg-GB for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Mon, 19 May 2008 06:53:25 -0400 Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1Jy2zb-0004KM-Oz for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Mon, 19 May 2008 06:53:25 -0400 Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=54015 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Jy2zb-0004KJ-Lf for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Mon, 19 May 2008 06:53:23 -0400 Received: from gecko.sbs.de ([194.138.37.40]:16385) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1Jy2zb-000587-3m for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Mon, 19 May 2008 06:53:23 -0400 Received: from mail1.sbs.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by gecko.sbs.de (8.12.11.20060308/8.12.11) with ESMTP id m4JAqmZj028476 for ; Mon, 19 May 2008 12:52:49 +0200 Received: from [139.25.109.167] (mchn012c.mchp.siemens.de [139.25.109.167] (may be forged)) by mail1.sbs.de (8.12.11.20060308/8.12.11) with ESMTP id m4JAqmOR020515 for ; Mon, 19 May 2008 12:52:48 +0200 Message-ID: <48315C00.8060601@siemens.com> Date: Mon, 19 May 2008 12:52:48 +0200 From: Jan Kiszka MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <948556.48155.qm@web57013.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <18481.20318.581788.423619@mariner.uk.xensource.com> In-Reply-To: <18481.20318.581788.423619@mariner.uk.xensource.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Qemu-devel] Re: Patch removing spaces Reply-To: qemu-devel@nongnu.org List-Id: qemu-devel.nongnu.org List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , To: qemu-devel@nongnu.org Ian Jackson wrote: > Balazs Attila-Mihaly \(Cd-MaN\) writes ("[Qemu-devel] Patch removing >> spaces"): If anyone is interested: a patch which removes spaces from >> the end of the lines. Compressed because it's rather big. > > Please don't apply this patch! > > Spaces at the ends of lines are indeed irritating and we should avoid > them. But going out of our way to remove them is definitely wrong - > it's reformatting, which is nearly always wrong in Free Software. Reformatting code according to some well established coding style is surely _not_ wrong - for whatever kind of software. Tools are smart enough to ignore plain whitespace changes. But even if rewrapping is required, a clear commit comment will keep people away from searching for functional changes (and that there are non can be checked beforehand at binary level). Reformatting sometimes also means re-reviewing (though I guess not in this case) with the chance to discover yet hidden bugs. Happened quite a few times for Linux during recent coding style fixes. Of course, bug fixes were not merged with style fixes. But such changes are indeed pointless if there is no decision to strictly enforce the coding style from that point on. And if there is no clearly documented style guide (e.g. in form of a indent script + a few relaxation rules). Jan -- Siemens AG, Corporate Technology, CT SE 2 Corporate Competence Center Embedded Linux