Ports with default modeline & lots of mixed tabs with spaces

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Feb 28, 2018, at 02:42, Mojca Miklavec wrote:

> I sometimes stumble across ports which contain our default modeline
> (claiming the Portfile should not use tabs) and then a weird mixture
> of tabs and spaces all over the place.
> 
> When there is no maintainer, I would always fix such a port. I once
> did it for a maintained port as well, just to see a commit immediately
> after that reverting my changes, ending up in tab-space mixture again.
> 
> I agree that it's a bad habit to change the number of spaces in
> someone else's port, but what's our policy for ports that contain a
> mixture of tabs & spaces *and* the modeline? I now leave such ports
> intact, but it's hurting my eyes.

I wouldn't completely change the whitespace of someone else's port, even after a maintainer timeout. But I would correct whitespace mistakes in someone else's port after a suitable timeout.

So, for maintained ports that include the standard modeline (which states that the file indents using spaces) but which contain some rogue tabs, I'd handle it the same as any other change to a maintained port. File a ticket or PR, and if no maintainer response within 72 hours, it's ok to commit a fix.

For maintained ports consistently using tabs and having no modeline (or a modeline that says it uses tabs, but I don't know if we have any of those), I'd leave it to the maintainer. It's fine to request they change from tabs to spaces, but if they don't want to, or they don't respond, I wouldn't change it.