CodingStyle: add information about trailing whitespace Signed-off-by: Josh Triplett <josh@kernel.org> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
diff --git a/Documentation/CodingStyle b/Documentation/CodingStyle index b49b92e..00bffa7b 100644 --- a/Documentation/CodingStyle +++ b/Documentation/CodingStyle
@@ -218,6 +218,18 @@ and no space around the '.' and "->" structure member operators. +Do not leave trailing whitespace at the ends of lines. Some editors with +"smart" indentation will insert whitespace at the beginning of new lines as +appropriate, so you can start typing the next line of code right away. +However, some such editors do not remove the whitespace if you end up not +putting a line of code there, such as if you leave a blank line. As a result, +you end up with lines containing trailing whitespace. + +Git will warn you about patches that introduce trailing whitespace, and can +optionally strip the trailing whitespace for you; however, if applying a series +of patches, this may make later patches in the series fail by changing their +context lines. + Chapter 4: Naming