Subject: Re: [PATCH v3 4/4] config.txt: describe handling of whitespace further

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2024 00:12:03 -0700

Dragan Simic <[email-masked]> writes:

>  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 after 'name =', the remainder of the
>  line after the first comment character '#' or ';', and trailing
> +whitespace characters of the line are discarded unless they are enclosed
> +in double quotes.

Can we directly tighten the "trailing..." part, instead of having to
add an extra long sentence ...

> +The discarding of the trailing whitespace characters
> +applies regardless of the discarding of the portion of the line after
> +the first comment character.

... like this as an attempt to clarify?

    Leading whitespace characters before and after 'name =', and the
    remainder of the line after the first comment character '#' or
    ';', are removed, and then trailing whitespace characters at the
    end of the line are discarded.

By the way, if a run of whitespace characters are enclosed in double
quotes, they cannot be trailing at the end of the line, as the
closing double quote is not a whitespace character, so it is out of
place to talk about quoted string in the context of trailing blank
removal.  The unquoting would want to be discussed separately.

> +Internal whitespace characters within the
> +value are retained verbatim.

Good.

>  
>  Inside double quotes, double quote `"` and backslash `\` characters
>  must be escaped: use `\"` for `"` and `\\` for `\`.

Thanks for working on this topic.