Bug#1100700: exim4 uses a mix of tabs and spaces within individual lines

[Ben Raven]

Hey Andreas,

For example, on a fresh exim4 install:

root at ben-test-2:/# cat /etc/os-release
PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)"
NAME="Debian GNU/Linux"
VERSION_ID="12"
VERSION="12 (bookworm)"
VERSION_CODENAME=bookworm
ID=debian
HOME_URL="https://www.debian.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://www.debian.org/support"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.debian.org/"
root at ben-test-2:/# exim4 --version | grep "Exim version"
Exim version 4.96 #2 built 28-Sep-2024 14:49:26
root at ben-test-2:/# grep -nPR /etc/exim4 -e "^\t "
/etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template:2120:            }\
/etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template:2121:            {\\N[\\^]\\N}\
/etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template:2122:            {^^}\
/etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template:2123:        }
/etc/exim4/conf.d/auth/30_exim4-config_examples:244:            }\
/etc/exim4/conf.d/auth/30_exim4-config_examples:245:
 {\\N[\\^]\\N}\
/etc/exim4/conf.d/auth/30_exim4-config_examples:246:            {^^}\
/etc/exim4/conf.d/auth/30_exim4-config_examples:247:        }

I'm not seeing these files in the exim upstream source code (
https://github.com/Exim/exim), but they are in the Debian exim4 source code
(https://salsa.debian.org/exim-team/exim4), which also contains many more
lines beginning with a tab followed by spaces. Apologies if this isn't the
right place to be reporting this; if so, where would be?

Ben

On Mon, 17 Mar 2025 at 17:35, Andreas Metzler <ametzler at bebt.de> wrote:

> Control: severity -1 wishlist
>
> On 2025-03-17 Ben Raven <benahr at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Package: exim4
> > Version: 4.96-15+deb12u6
>
> > The version of exim4 installed with apt contains 20 lines that begin
> with a
> > tab character followed by one or more spaces. This breaks alignment in
> text
> > editors when using a tab size other than 8 and makes line by line file
> > manipulation trickier. Replacing all tabs with eight spaces fixes this.
>
> > The Debian exim4 repo contains around a thousand lines with a tab
> character
> > followed by at least one space, so I haven't been able to track down the
> > source of this. I believe these tabs are also all standing in for eight
> > spaces.
> [...]
>
> Hello,
>
> are you talking about the sourcecode or some specific file in a binary
> package?
>
> If this is about the source code then I think this is the wrong place to
> discuss this, since we are not going to reformat the upstream source in
> Debian.
>
> cu Andreas
> --
> `What a good friend you are to him, Dr. Maturin. His other friends are
> so grateful to you.'
> `I sew his ears on from time to time, sure'
>
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