From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: Nathan Bossart <nathandbossart@gmail.com>
Cc: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: postgresql.conf.sample tab width
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2025 15:25:15 -0500
Message-ID: <3230808.1763151915@sss.pgh.pa.us> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <aReNUKdMgKxLqmq7@nathan>
References: <aReNUKdMgKxLqmq7@nathan>
Nathan Bossart <nathandbossart@gmail.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
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Reply to all the recipients using the --to and --cc options:
reply via email
To: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
Cc: tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us, nathandbossart@gmail.com
Subject: Re: postgresql.conf.sample tab width
In-Reply-To: <3230808.1763151915@sss.pgh.pa.us>
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
This inbox is served by DDX for PostgreSQL; see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox