[Docutils-develop] [docutils:feature-requests] Re: #97 --disable-tab-expansion flag

[Günter M. <mi...@us...>]

The negative value for the TAB expansion width is only supported for literal inclusions, not for the main document or included rST files.


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**[feature-requests:#97] --disable-tab-expansion flag**

**Status:** open
**Group:** Default
**Created:** Sun Jul 16, 2023 09:21 AM UTC by toastal
**Last Updated:** Thu Nov 09, 2023 05:04 PM UTC
**Owner:** nobody


> Spaces are recommended for indentation, but tabs may also be used. Tabs will be converted to spaces. Tab stops are at every 8th column (processing systems may make this value configurable).

Why tho? By converting tabs to spaces, we lose the accessibility aspect that tabs provide by letting the reader decide what’s comfortable to them as tab-width should be configurable on the reader’s side, not the writer’s. Some programming languages, like Go, tabs are overwhelmingly preferred & sometimes even required. Copying some code would not work.

I would like to see a `--disable-tab-expansion` flag that lets the author choose how they want their output to be output.


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