Query on CodingStyle: indentation

[Greg Freemyer]

On Fri, Oct 19, 2012 at 5:00 AM, Kumar amit mehta <gmate.amit at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 19, 2012 at 03:03:28PM +0800, Adam Lee wrote:
>> On Thu, Oct 18, 2012 at 10:31:29PM -0700, Kumar amit mehta wrote:
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > I've a query regarding the coding style for Linux Kernel code. I'm
>> > reading the CodingStyle under Documentation and what I've understood is
>> > that I shouldn't be using spaces for indentation purposes and should use
>> > tabs of width 8 characters. Quoting from the same document:
>> > "Outside of comments, documentation and except in Kconfig, spaces are
>> > never used for indentation, and the above example is deliberately broken."
>> > However, Is it correct to replace each tab stroke by 8 spaces ? I use vim
>> > editor and I've put following under $HOME/.vimrc file:
>> > <snip>
>> > set tabstop=8
>> > set shiftwidth=8
>> > set expandtab
>> > <snip>
>> >
>> > In past I've seen that some application have different interpretation of
>> > tabs and hence sometimes even If I've done proper indentation using tab,
>> > the code appears unindented, and therefore In order to make sure that I'm
>> > moving 8 characters upon hitting tab, I've put the above rules under my
>> > .vimrc file. Please let me know If I should remove these from my .vimrc
>> > file and rely on tab instead.
>>
>> No, you should not expand tabs. Tabs in CodingStyle mean _hard_ tabs.
>>
>> Mine:
>>
>> <snip>
>> set tabstop=8
>> set noexpandtab
>> set shiftwidth=8
>> set cinoptions=:0,l1,t0,g0
>> <snip>
>>
>
> Thank you Adam for sharing your vim recipe.

I believe you can still use your standard vim recipe, then run
checkpatch.pl on your patches to replace spaces with tabs before
sending them to upstream.

Someone else who uses that workflow would need to confirm that works well.

Greg