Re: [PATCH 2/8] maint: remove empty lines at EOF, but excluding modules/*

[Jim Meyering]

Jim Meyering wrote:

> Eric Blake wrote:
>> On 01/17/2012 11:44 AM, Jim Meyering wrote:
>>
>>>>> * doc/INSTALL: Likewise.
>>>>> * doc/INSTALL.ISO: Likewise.
>>>>> * doc/INSTALL.UTF-8: Likewise.
>>>>
>>>> These files are generated through doc/Makefile. Also, on text files
>>>> that consist of multiple paragraphs, I find it good (esthetic) to have
>>>> a blank line at the end. It helps when you do "cat INSTALL" or
>>>> "more INSTALL" (especially with the BSD 'more' program that terminates
>>>> when it has printed the last line).
>>>
>>> I already exempted all of modules/* for you (I prefer to omit
>>> the trailing blank line everywhere).  Exempting three more is no problem.
>>> Well, not much of a problem.  Exempting them would make the regexp go
>>> beyond column 80, so this splits it.  Not pretty:
>>>
>>> diff --git a/cfg.mk b/cfg.mk
>>> index bce58d2..2b4bcc8 100644
>>> --- a/cfg.mk
>>> +++ b/cfg.mk
>>> @@ -48,8 +48,9 @@ local-checks-to-skip =                    \
>>>    sc_unmarked_diagnostics          \
>>>    sc_useless_cpp_parens
>>>
>>> +empty-at-EOF = 
>>> /fr/LC_MESSAGES/test-quotearg\.mo$$|^doc/INSTALL(\.(ISO|UTF-8))?
>>>  exclude_file_name_regexp--sc_prohibit_empty_lines_at_EOF = \
>>> -  ^modules/|^lib/javaversion\.class$$|/fr/LC_MESSAGES/test-quotearg\.mo$$
>>> +  ^modules/|^lib/javaversion\.class$$|$(empty-at-EOF)
>>
>> This part of your commit looks fishy: you touched up doc/INSTALL and
>> friends, but the next time doc/install.texi is changed, they will be
>> regenerated.  So right now, the exemption for those files does nothing,
>> but the generated files are also out of sync.
>>
>> I would be in favor of Paul's proposed patch that makes the generation
>> omit the trailing blank line in the first place, but if we do that, then
>> we _also_ need to remove doc/INSTALL from the empty-at-EOF exemption.
>
> I too would prefer to use Paul's patch and thus to remove the
> doc/INSTALL* exemptions.
>
> Bruno, I know it's not your preference, but would that be ok with you.

Something else to consider:
We are version-controlling these generated INSTALL* files.
That is already on the edge of acceptability, but we're
making exceptions here so that those files are easily
accessible via the existing gitweb interface.

IMHO, especially in *generated*-VC'd files, we can make an
effort to have them conform.