Re: Emacs local variables

[Jim Meyering]

Reuben Thomas wrote:

> On 29 April 2011 21:48, Bruno Haible <address@hidden> wrote:
>>
>> But first, did you try / are you using the code from gnulib/README?
>>
>>      ;; In gnulib, indent with spaces everywhere (not TABs).
>>      ;; Exceptions: Makefile and ChangeLog modes.
>>      (add-hook 'find-file-hook '(lambda ()
>>        (if (and buffer-file-name
>>                 (string-match "/gnulib\\>" (buffer-file-name))
>>                 (not (string-equal mode-name "Change Log"))
>>                 (not (string-equal mode-name "Makefile")))
>>            (setq indent-tabs-mode nil))))
>
> I don't like the look of this because it adds something to a hook
> unnecessarily, when having a .dir-locals.el file would be simpler and
> cleaner.
>
>> Does this code help?
>
> No, because I have indent-tabs-mode customized to nil by default
> anyway (I don't use tabs in my own files, by default).
>
> And now I cannot get whitespace-mode to work with ChangeLogs, because
> while the body of ChangeLog entries require leading tabs, the second
> and subsequent lines of author headers require leading spaces. So I

Actually, there is not requirement for space-based indentation in
ChangeLog.  I prefer consistent TAB-based indentation and have
periodically performed the s/^ {8}/\t/ global substitution on ChangeLog.
I've just done that again.