Query on CodingStyle: indentation

[Kumar amit mehta]

On Fri, Oct 19, 2012 at 11:40:35AM -0400, Greg Freemyer wrote:
> 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

Thank you Greg for reminding about this script(checkpatch.pl). I updated
my $HOME/.vimrc file as per Adam's suggestion and generated a patch and
then ran this checkpatch.pl script against my patch and It didn't give
me any error. So I guess the above vim recipe is fine. I've sent that
patch to kernel-janitor group and had kept the maintainer in the CC as
well. I haven't got the reply yet, so I don't know if my patch got
merged or not.

-Amit