[Libvir] revised proposal: remove all indentation directives

Daniel Veillard <veillard(a)redhat.com&gt; wrote: Glad we agree. There's one more detail. Some files (e.g. libvirt.c) end with these lines: /* * vim: set tabstop=4: * vim: set shiftwidth=4: * vim: set expandtab: */ /* * Local variables: * indent-tabs-mode: nil * c-indent-level: 4 * c-basic-offset: 4 * tab-width: 4 * End: */ while others (e.g., conf.c) only have the latter block. I'm removing all of these lines regardless: * tab-width: 4 * vim: set tabstop=4: The question is what directives to add to files that currently have none, and how to normalize the existing things. First of all, regarding the vim: directives, they don't serve any purpose, by default. It helps to know that they're interpreted only when Vim's modeline option is enabled. Some distros disable that option because honoring those directives poses a security risk. (Vim's default is to disable modeline for root, and Debian's Vim does that for all users). Even if you turn on the modeline option, Vim searches only the first and last 5 lines by default, when looking for directives, and so the ones above aren't ever honored. So, unless someone objects soon, I'll remove all vim: directives. ------------------------------------------------------- As for the emacs directives, I'm divided. On one hand, it's nice to record project-wide guidelines in a way that's hard to miss. On the other, it's a shame to require this mark-up in every single .c and .h file. While I was planning to add 7 lines to each of the remaining 24 files, consider this alternative: Remove all such directives and instead instruct (via HACKING or some such file) developers to use a small .emacs snippet that defines the desired style for code in a libvirt/ subdir. Then, the style would be defined in just one place, in case we ever change it. For example, add this to your Emacs start-up file: ;;; When editing C in libvirt, indent using spaces, not TABs. (add-hook 'c-mode-hook '(lambda () (if (string-match "/libvirt/" (buffer-file-name)) (setq indent-tabs-mode nil)))) and it has the same effect as inserting the following comment at the end of every file (assuming your working directory name matches): /* * Local variables: * indent-tabs-mode: nil * End: */ I'm sure you can do something similar in Vim.