[Rails-devel] XML and Java file formatting

[Erik V. <eri...@xs...>]

In my previous mail I mentioned a Perl XML formatter that I have just
written on the fly and committed to the repository (well, I had written such
a script before, but could not find it).  I have used it to format some
recreated Tiles.xml files, and will keep using it for that purpose (perhaps
for other XML files too, if needed; but XMLBuddy seems to work the same).

On the details, I have settled on the format of the generic Tiles.xml file,
as it has recently been reformatted by Brett:
- for indentation: tabs, no spaces (I loathe tabs, but see no point in
starting an argument about that),
- newlines only, no CRs (to achieve that on Windows, formatxml.pl uses
binmode).
Can we try to standardize this way? I often see redundant whitespace-only
differences in commits, which is a waste.

Redundant whitespace-only differences are also often seen in Java source
code commits. Here I would also propose to standardize on the currently most
frequent usage, which is:
- for indentation: spaces, no tabs (after all, in this way I have written
the majority of the code, and Stefan does it similarly.  I notice that Brett
uses tabs).
- newlines only (I don't think that it matters for Java compilers, but this
is how Eclipse is doing it even on my Windows machine. Brett's machine is
adding CRs, as it seems to me).
Please note, that my Eclipse is set to convert all tabs to spaces on saving
Rails Java files. 

This all is no problem as long as we work on different code packages, but
some files have several contributors by now.

I hope this helps.

Erik.