Re: [xml-dev] Use tabs rather than a series of (wasteful) spaces
tl/dr tabs are evil
On Sun, 19 Jun 2022 at 19:38, Roger L Costello <[email protected]> wrote:
1. The XML is in a standardized form, which makes it easier to write programs that talk and work together.
I don't see how tabs help, I'd normally detabify before processing.
2. The XML documents are smaller, as they have no wasteful embedded blanks.
hmm
3. Typing is faster.
any reasonable editor would indent automatically: you should never have to add multiple spaces or tabs "by hand"
in emacs I can use tab key anywhere on the line and the whole line will be indented to the correct amount (using spaces).
I'd have to use more keystrokes to add a literal tab (cntrl-Q <tab> for example)
You might object, "What if I feed the XML document into, say, a printer device that doesn't allow tabs?" Answer: simply write a detab tool that converts tabs to spaces.
Note that many tools automatically detab text files. For example, the "more" tool automatically detabs.
more document.xml | printer-device
really? I have ever seen a version of more that does that.
$ more r2.xml | grep -P '\t'
<Greeting>Hello, world</Greeting>
<Greeting>Hello, world</Greeting>
shows it still has a tab
David