sample: normalize indentation to tabs or spaces about nixpkgs-fmt HOT 7 CLOSED

good point. Do you have any idea to find out the size of the tabs that the user used?

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I don't think we can know how the user has configured tab size by only parsing the file. To that point using spaces might be easier to handle programatically.

We could detect a mix and emit a warning. I'm reminded of eslint's rule.

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Yeah, we currently don't handle tabs at all, and just hard-code two-spaces indentation. I don't know what's the right solution here. The common wisdom is "use spaces", so we can just force-convert tabs to spaces. However, I've recently heard compelling argument to use tabs: it helps accessibility, because people with poor eyesight often want to configure tab size to unusual values.

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However, I've recently heard compelling argument to use tabs: it helps accessibility, because people with poor eyesight often want to configure tab size to unusual values.

That is a great point. If nix expressions does not mandate an indentation style I think we should consider using tabs chiefly to support accessibility.

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Then we would still have the same problem but in reverse :)

The nix code in nixpkgs is formatted with 2 spaces and that acts as our canonical representation of code.

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Then we would still have the same problem but in reverse :)

True! Being idealistic I think we would need to establish a specification for the nix expression language. I quickly scanned the manual but did not find anything about indentation style being mandated.
But the interim would be to come up with a temporary solution. So perhaps forcing the conversion for now.

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The current coding convention for nixpkgs is encoded over here: https://nixos.org/nixpkgs/manual/#sec-syntax

The goal of nixpkgs-fmt is to be adopted as a tool to format nixpkgs. Until that happens the format should stay largely the same as what is being used in nixpkgs.

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