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doc: document tab behavior better

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* doc/diffutils.texi (Tabs): Document issues with tabs,
encoding errors, and non-ASCII characters.
This commit is contained in:
Paul Eggert 2023-07-17 12:48:30 -07:00
parent e44fb6b802
commit 856f72409b
1 changed files with 14 additions and 3 deletions
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doc/diffutils.texi
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@ -1904,6 +1904,10 @@ These adjustments can be applied to any output format.
@cindex tab stop alignment
@cindex aligning tab stops
The tab character moves the cursor to the next tab stop.
Tab stops are normally every 8 display columns;
this can be altered by the @option{--tabsize=@var{columns}} option.
The lines of text in some of the @command{diff} output formats are
preceded by one or two characters that indicate whether the text is
inserted, deleted, or changed. The addition of those characters can
@ -1916,9 +1920,7 @@ number of spaces before outputting them; select this method with the
@option{--expand-tabs} (@option{-t}) option. To use this form of output with
@command{patch}, you must give @command{patch} the @option{-l} or
@option{--ignore-white-space} option (@pxref{Changed White Space}, for more
information). @command{diff} normally assumes that tab stops are set
every 8 print columns, but this can be altered by the
@option{--tabsize=@var{columns}} option.
information).
The other method for making tabs line up correctly is to add a tab
character instead of a space after the indicator character at the
@ -1931,6 +1933,15 @@ output format, which does not have a space character after the change
type indicator character. Select this method with the @option{-T} or
@option{--initial-tab} option.
GNU @command{diff} currently assumes that the output device respects tab stops,
displays each character with column width as given by the operating system,
and displays each encoding error byte in a single column.
Unfortunately these assumptions are often incorrect
for encoding errors and non-ASCII characters,
so complex input data may not line up properly on output,
and analysis based on the @option{--ignore-tab-expansion} (@option{-E}) option
may differ from the display device's behavior.
@node Trailing Blanks
@section Omitting trailing blanks
@cindex trailing blanks