7 ms·

I remember seeing a Github bot a couple weeks ago that strips out whitespace and adds a .gitignore file to a repo (I also remember this really rubbing some peop

• andrewcamel 15y ago
  I actually just replied with a suggestion that Github should implement some built-in functionality for simple error-checking. I think it's a great idea. It would be really helpful if you got a simple little list of notifications for a commit indicating possible error points.
  • gravitronic 15y ago
    avoid feature creep! github's platform allows for bots to run, a bot is a perfect way to implement this instead of it being "built-in".
  • Noughmad 15y ago
    So basically something like Krazy does with KDE: http://ebn.kde.org/krazy/ http://ebn.kde.org/krazy/
• Mizza 15y ago
  I wrote that bot! https://github.com/Miserlou/WhitespaceBot https://github.com/Miserlou/WhitespaceBot Feel free to fork it to do whatever you want, that's why I made it.
  • xyzzyb 15y ago
    Ah, aggressive trailing whitespace removal. That I can completely get behind. I've already got command-s bound to a custom macro that strips trailing whitespace in TextMate for myself and my co-workers; but this would be an even more inclusive solution.
    • tensafefrogs 15y ago
      Fantastic. If you use vim, you should have this in your .vimrc: " Remove any trailing whitespace that is in the file autocmd BufRead,BufWrite * if ! &bin | silent! %s/\s\+$//ge | endif
      • illicium 15y ago
        I prefer using the vim-trailing-whitespace plugin and fixing it manually: https://github.com/bronson/vim-trailing-whitespace https://github.com/bronson/vim-trailing-whitespace
        • throwaway392 15y ago
          Or you can use my competing plugin: https://github.com/bitc/vim-bad-whitespace https://github.com/bitc/vim-bad-whitespace which has some advantages (described in the README)
          • jdwhit2 15y ago
            One advantage taken from the readme: This plugin is better than using the builtin vim 'list' command because it doesn't show an annoying highlight while you are typing in insert mode at the end of a line.
      • snprbob86 15y ago
        Or, if you prefer a more manual approach (ie. my fellow paranoid developers) simply use `list` and `listchars`: set list set listchars=trail:• In other people's code, use `set nolist` to prevent hyperventilation. In general, explore `help list`.
  • hartez 15y ago
    Is there any equivalent of the robots.txt standard for public code repositories? Being able to opt-in to certain bots might be helpful (opt-out being the default, of course).
    • gerggerg 15y ago
      That's a really cool suggestion and I would love to see some sudo-standard on this.
  • Stratoscope 15y ago
    Hey, some of us actually use trailing whitespace! :-) I use it to create useful indentation guides in Komodo. If the whitespace is stripped away, the indentation guides have gaps where there's a blank line in an indented block. Maybe Komodo could use a different method to decide where to draw the lines that didn't depend on trailing whitespace. It looks like Sublime Text 2 has a different approach for its indentation guides - maybe the Komodo guys should look at that. But in the meantime I'm using Komodo as it actually works today, so the whitespace on blank lines is important. Let me keep it, please? :-) I wouldn't mind stripping out trailing whitespace on nonblank lines - that wouldn't affect my precious indentation guides. But wait a minute, what about Markdown? Two spaces at the end of a line to get a <br>, right? Does the bot skip Markdown files? Finally, for the folks who have automatic whitespace removal in their editor settings... Please be careful: With this setting, you'll be very likely to make a commit that includes both significant code changes and a mass of whitespace changes in the came commit. Those kinds of changes should be separated: one commit for the code itself, and a separate commit for the whitespace with a comment like "Whitespace cleanup, no code changes." This allows people who diff the revision history to diff with whitespace significant most of the time, the only exception being when reviewing a whitespace-only change. (Edited for friendlier tone...)
    • rmccue 15y ago
      From a quick look at the source, WhitespaceBot already excludes Markdown files: banned = ['.git', '.py', '.yaml', '.patch', '.hs', '.occ', '.md', '.markdown', '.mdown']
    • mook 15y ago
      If you create a JS macro that is triggered on file open, with the contents "komodo.view.scimoz.indentationGuides = komodo.view.scimoz.SC_IV_LOOKBOTH", it should give you the indentation guides without the whitespace actually there. http://www.scintilla.org/ScintillaDoc.html#SCI_SETINDENTATIONGUIDES http://www.scintilla.org/ScintillaDoc.html#SCI_SETINDENTATIO... has some explanation of the possible values.
  • xxqs 15y ago
    in my 10-years old project, removing all trailing whitespace would produce a 1000+ lines commit, and make many contributors' lives harder. so, thanks, but I'll keep my whitespace.
• tux1968 15y ago
  Perhaps it would be more productive to advocate the use of local pre-commit hooks. Git makes it very easy to configure validation locally long before anything gets sent to Github. Would be nice if Github provided better documentation and a selection of validation templates to include in new projects. This would better leverage the power of Git and its distributed nature than a bot running on Github.
  • campnic 15y ago
    I'll look for more on this, but if you had something you would recommend as a tutorial, I'd appreciate it.
    • tux1968 15y ago
      Didn't have a specific example in mind; there is definitely opportunity for Github to help with education and adoption. For some reference material check out: http://book.git-scm.com/5_git_hooks.html http://progit.org/book/ch7-3.html And a couple simple examples: http://mark-story.com/posts/view/using-git-commit-hooks-to-prevent-stupid-mistakes https://github.com/ReekenX/git-php-syntax-checker