Re: postgresql.conf.sample tab width

Nathan Bossart <nathandbossart(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> I noticed that GitHub is using 4-space tabs for this file [0], presumably
> due to this [1] recent change. I'm not aware of an official policy for
> this file, but it seems to be written for 8-space tabs.

> One way to fix this is to set our default tab width to 8 in
> .gitattributes/.editorconfig (see attached patch). AFAICT that doesn't
> affect source code files. We could also add a special rule for
> postgresql.conf.sample, or we could even convert it to 4-space tabs. Any
> druthers?

We've been around on this topic before. It's hard for us to deal with
8-space tabs within our repo, but we should expect that users who are
editing their postgresql.conf files are probably going to be using
8-space tabs.

I seem to recall a proposal that the best fix is to not use tabs
at all in postgresql.conf.sample. That seems like a good way out
to me. I think we could fix .gitattributes so that "git diff --check"
would verify no tabs, but I've not looked into details.

regards, tom lane