Subject: Re: bug#5312: Why is ‘show-trailing-whitespace’ considered unsafe?

From: [email-masked] (Ludovic Courtès)
Date: Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:13:14 +0100

Hi,

Stefan Monnier <[email-masked]> writes:

> Of course, maybe you can come up with file formats where trailing
> whitespaces are seriously problematic as well.  I just can't think of
> any off the top of my head.

Trailing whitespaces can lead to pointless conflicts when applying
patches.  See, e.g.,
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email-masked]/msg04896.html .

In this thread, the project’s policy is to get rid of them, and
‘show-trailing-whitespace’ in ‘.dir-locals.el’ or similar would
definitely help.

Thanks,
Ludo’.