Re: diff-mode misinterprets empty lines.

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> This is important to fix.  Would someone please fix it in Emacs 22,
> then ack?

[...]

> GNU diff since version 2.8.7 outputs empty lines in the unified diff
> format for empty context lines that don't change (instead of single
> space followed by newline). See, e.g., the thread starting here:
>
> <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnu-utils/2006-09/msg00005.html>

I have to agree with those thinking it is a terrible idea to prune
trailing spaces that are part of the _diff_ format.

When people don't want trailing whitespace warnings to trigger in their
editor, they should obviously amend diff-mode for that.  But changing
the diff format instead is insane.  And that patch happens to have
tolerance code intended to deal with utterly broken mailers is no excuse
for that.

There are lots of other tools working with diffs and applying patches.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum