GNU bug report logs - #5312
Why is ‘show-trailing-whitespace’ considered unsafe?

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Package: emacs;

Reported by: ludo <at> gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès)

Date: Tue, 5 Jan 2010 14:09:07 UTC

Severity: minor

Done: Glenn Morris <rgm <at> gnu.org>

Bug is archived. No further changes may be made.

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From: Kevin Rodgers <kevin.d.rodgers <at> gmail.com>
To: bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org
Subject: bug#5312: Why is ‘show-trailing-whitespace’ considered unsafe?
Date: Thu, 07 Jan 2010 07:17:29 -0700

Stefan Monnier wrote:
> Stefan> Of course, maybe you can come up with file formats where trailing
> Stefan> whitespaces are seriously problematic as well.  I just can't think
> Stefan> of any off the top of my head.
> 
>> One seen recently -- on the groff list, IIRC -- involved continuation
>> lines.  <\><NL> works, <\><SP><NL> does not.
> 
> That also affects C, C++, Elisp, and many other formats.  The fact that we
> haven't mentioned them indicates that it's not considered "seriously
> problematic" enough.
> Actually, font-lock can also be used in those modes to highlight such
> suspicious forms: it's more useful than show-trailing-whitespace since
> it can more specifically target those trailing whitespaces that are
> semantically significant.

Regardless, show-trailing-whitespace is safe.

-- 
Kevin Rodgers
Denver, Colorado, USA
This bug report was last modified 15 years and 132 days ago.

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