[rfc-i] tabs [was: sourcecode indentation]

[tony at att.com (HANSEN, TONY L)]

On 2/14/16, 5:07 PM, "Brian E Carpenter" <brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com> wrote:


>On 15/02/2016 08:53, HANSEN, TONY L wrote:
>> On 2/13/16, 5:00 PM, "rfc-interest on behalf of Paul Kyzivat" <rfc-interest-bounces at rfc-editor.org on behalf of pkyzivat at alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>
>...
>>> But what does negative indent do if there are tabs at the beginning of
>>> the text?
>> 
>> 
>> This question is broader than indent and outdent, as we don't currently allow tabs anywhere in the XML source.
>
>Which seems to me to be the only safe choice, since what a tab means other
>than some unspecified amount of whitespace is unknowable.

I actually mis-spoke earlier. Tabs are not allowed anywhere within figures and source code. Elsewhere within the XML, tabs have always been considered fine (unless a change got slipped in that I missed).

If there were demand for tab to be allowed within figures and source code, the obvious choice is to let the user specify what that amount of whitespace was.

I note that python allows tabs (and assumes it's equal to 8 spaces when used), but a number of Python style guides recommend only allowing spaces.

Makefiles insist on tab characters.

The XML files I send to xml2rfc today often have a mixture of tabs and spaces, because that's what my editor generates on indenting and re-indenting. It's only within figures and now source code blocks that tabs become troublesome.

	Tony Hansen