Re: [Bug-gnulib] SPACE-before-TAB nits in getloadavg.m4 and lib-ld.m4

[Bruno Haible]

Paul Eggert wrote:
> > sc_space_tab:
> >         @grep -E '[ ]   ' --exclude=$(srcdir)/lib/regex.c               \
> >                 --exclude=$(srcdir)/m4/lib-*.m4                         \
> >                 $(srcdir)/{lib,src}/*.[chly]                            \
> >                 $(find -name Makefile.am) &&                            \
> >           { echo '$(ME): found SPACE-TAB sequence; remove the SPACE'    \
>
> Surely this is too strong.  The exclude pattern shouldn't exclude all
> the C files in lib and src, only the files that you maintain.

The --exclude that I've added excludes only m4/lib-*.m4.

> Ideally the code wouldn't rely on the distinction between space and
> internal tabs; e.g., you could filter the code through "expand |
> unexpand" without affecting its correctness.

That's a rule that you make up and that is likely to hold for most C source
(except maybe those containing translatable strings for the --help output),
but you have seen that for shell scripts like config.guess this rule
doesn't hold. And likewise for some *.m4 files that contain shell commands
it doesn't hold either. Especially for *.sh and *.m4 files that I write
and that contain tabs only at those places where really a tab is meant and
necessary.

Bruno