From pengyu.ut at gmail.com  Sun Nov 29 17:50:12 2009
From: pengyu.ut at gmail.com (Peng Yu)
Date: Sun, 29 Nov 2009 10:50:12 -0600
Subject: [Rd] Tabs in R source code
In-Reply-To: <4B12A3FD.9010006@stats.uwo.ca>
References: <366c6f340911290758t71dd256dtd7975a49ae9155a7@mail.gmail.com>
	<4B12A3FD.9010006@stats.uwo.ca>
Message-ID: <366c6f340911290850o3d4e16dfg3e2318339f0b0f92@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 10:40 AM, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch at stats.uwo.ca> wrote:
> On 29/11/2009 10:58 AM, Peng Yu wrote:
>>
>> Some lines are indented by tabs and some lines are indented by spaces,
>> in R source code. This might due to the fact that the source code is
>> not from a single person. But I think that it is better to enforce a
>> single convention.
>>
>> My editor defaults a tab to 8 spaces. So some source doesn't seem to
>> be indented correctly in my editor. Since tab may be displayed
>> differently in different editor, I recommend to replace all the tabs
>> by the appropriate number of spaces to ensure the same indentation
>> display.
>
> The R source code assumes that tabs occur every 8 columns, so if your editor
> is working properly, it should display files as intended.
>
>> Could somebody update the source code in the future version by
>> replacing tabs by spaces and enforce such a coding convention in the
>> future?
>
> No, that would not be feasible, for the reason you give in the second
> sentence of your post.

I don't understand why it is not feasible. The spaces are displayed
the same in all editors. If there are no tabs, the code should display
the same in all editors. I know some languages that are recommended to
have spaces rather than tabs for this reason.



[Rd] Tabs in R source code
Peng Yu