CodingStyle: add information about trailing whitespace

[safe/jmp/linux-2.6] / Documentation / CodingStyle

diff --git a/Documentation/CodingStyle b/Documentation/CodingStyle
index b49b92e..00bffa7 100644 (file)
--- a/Documentation/CodingStyle
+++ b/Documentation/CodingStyle
@@ -218,6 +218,18 @@ no space after the prefix increment & decrement unary operators:
 
 and no space around the '.' and "->" structure member operators.
 
+Do not leave trailing whitespace at the ends of lines.  Some editors with
+"smart" indentation will insert whitespace at the beginning of new lines as
+appropriate, so you can start typing the next line of code right away.
+However, some such editors do not remove the whitespace if you end up not
+putting a line of code there, such as if you leave a blank line.  As a result,
+you end up with lines containing trailing whitespace.
+
+Git will warn you about patches that introduce trailing whitespace, and can
+optionally strip the trailing whitespace for you; however, if applying a series
+of patches, this may make later patches in the series fail by changing their
+context lines.
+
 
                Chapter 4: Naming