On Thu, Mar 21, 2024 at 12:17 AM Dragan Simic <dsimic@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Make it more clear what the whitespace characters are in the context of git
> configuration files, and significantly improve the description of the leading
> and trailing whitespace handling, especially how it works out together with
> the presence of inline comments.
>
> Helped-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Dragan Simic <dsimic@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> diff --git a/Documentation/config.txt b/Documentation/config.txt
> @@ -63,13 +64,15 @@ the variable is the boolean "true").
> A line that defines a value can be continued to the next line by
> +ending it with a `\`; the backslash and the end-of-line are stripped.
> +Leading whitespace characters before 'name =' are discarded.
> +The portion of the line after the first comment character, including
> +the comment character itself, is discarded. Unless enclosed in double
> +quotation marks (`"`), any leading or trailing whitespace characters
> +surrounding 'value' are discarded. Internal whitespace characters
> +within 'value' are retained verbatim.
I find this statement confusing and ambiguous:
Unless enclosed in double quotation marks (`"`), any leading or
trailing whitespace characters surrounding 'value' are discarded.
since it might imply that the shown <SP> and <TAB> whitespace is
retained outside the quotes, as well:
key =<SP><TAB>" string "<SP>
It should be possible to rephrase it to be more definite, while
dropping the final sentence altogether. Perhaps:
Whitespace surrounding `name`, `=` and `value` is ignored. If
`value` is surrounding by double quotation marks (`"`), all
characters within the quoted string are retained verbatim,
including whitespace. Comments starting with either `#` or `;` and
extending to the end of line are discarded. A line that defines a
value can be continued to the next line by ending it with a `\`;
the backslash and the end-of-line are stripped.
