Subject: Re: [PATCH] Document disabling core.whitespace values trailing-space and space-before-tab

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:44:47 -0700

Nanako Shiraishi <[email-masked]> writes:

> Quoting "Peter Valdemar Mrch (Lists)"  <[email-masked]>:
>
>> The '-trailing-space' syntax to disable the trailing-space setting is
>> not obvious and not documented as far as I can see. I would have
>> assumed a value of '' would disable it.
>>
>> Is there a documentation bug here? If so, I suggest this patch. I
>> didn't find anywhere else where the '-setting' syntax was used to
>> disable something.
>
> Doesn't gitattributes(5) describe the overall syntax in detail?

Yes, but as Peter says in his reply to you, it only talks about [-!]name
syntax to force the variable to unset (with '-' prefix) and to revert the
variable to the unspecified state (with '!' prefix).

Various "values" given to the whitespace attribute actually act as if they
are sub-variables and obey the similar "[-]name" rule, but (1) that is
left unsaid, and (2) in that context '!' does not make sense so only '-'
has any meaning.  We would certainly need to clarify that.

So I think Peter's patch is going in the right direction.