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Spaces in blank lines

Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 6:20 pm
by Ambush Commander
One of the more peculiar (to me) conventions I've encountered when browsing other people's codebases is the absence of spaces in blank lines. For example, where I would expect (spaces were replaced with periods):

Code: Select all

function foo() {
....doSomething();
....
....doSomethingElse();
}
I see...

Code: Select all

function foo() {
....doSomething();
 
....doSomethingElse();
}
Why is this the case? Part of the reason of my ignorance is the fact that my editor (Notepad++) automatically adds spaces when I make a new line, but if I press ENTER again, those spaces stay there. Do other editors work differently?

Re: Spaces in blank lines

Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 6:22 pm
by Inkyskin
I have noticed the same thing too - however I also use Notepadd++ ;)

Re: Spaces in blank lines

Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 6:31 pm
by RobertGonzalez
Not all editors maintain indentation. In fact, in many editors this feature is off by default. Notepad++ has a setting that will let you turn it off. I know vi and gEdit do not keep indentation. But it is a nice feature to have.

Re: Spaces in blank lines

Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 7:49 pm
by Zoxive
Everah wrote:I know vi and gEdit do not keep indentation.
Whens the last time you have used VI?

Mine keeps indentation, all though I use Vim/Gvim. (Mostly Gvim)

Another note, i have the crap hacked out of my Gvim.
My default config is 350 lines. <3 Full Customization/Custom Scripts.

Edit: Just checked more into it. Read the comment...

Code: Select all

----Function();
---- //Vim Removes These spaces after i go to the next line, while its still indented for the next line.
----Function2();
I actually like the way vi does it, mostly because there are sooo many ways to move around in vi. I guess then theres a little less data stored also. A little :mrgreen:

Re: Spaces in blank lines

Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 7:55 pm
by Chris Corbyn
Quite annoying JEdit (the editor of choice in our office) removes any whitespace on blank lines, so here's me maintaining my indent profile, then hit CTRL + S and boom, JEdit blows it away.

I like to have the entire block indented, not just the lines with content on them. I'd be using TextMate at work if we didn't have to work off a damn samba share (TextMate dies painfully on samba shares :()

Re: Spaces in blank lines

Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 8:00 pm
by Jonah Bron
I use Dreamweaver or SciTE, and they both maintain indentation, content or no content.

Re: Spaces in blank lines

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 9:24 am
by Jenk
Eclipse has the option to remove trailing whitespace. Ergo, it will trim the lines with nothing but whitespace back to just \n.