if (c == ESC)
{
*r++ = '\\';
c = 'e';
}
else if (c == '\\' || c == '"')
*r++ = '\\';
*r++ = (unsigned char)c;
}
*r = '\0';
How does that happen? Because people end up mixing tabs and spaces. Some lines are indented with spaces, some with tabs, too many with tabs intermixed with spaces (I mean things like <space><tab><space>). I'm not even sure how people end up doing the last one, but it's common:
gdb 8.3 include/libiberty.h line 543 has 15 spaces, then a tab, then 10 spaces, then 2 tabs, then 3 spaces.
binutils 2.32 gas/itbl-parse.c line 119 has 1 tab, then 4 spaces, then 1 tab, then 4 spaces, then 1 tab, then 4 spaces, then 1 tab, then 4 spaces, then 1 tab, then 4 spaces, then 1 tab, then 4 spaces, then 1 tab, then 4 spaces.
binutils 2.32 zlib/make_vms.com line 831 has 6 spaces, then a tab, then 2 spaces, then 3 tabs, then 5 spaces.
I'm sure they added tabs to give the convenience of being able to adjust the indentation to what I like, but in reality they just force me to change it to what others like to even read a file. Using hard-tabs seems like naive idealism. I haven't yet seen a project that uses hard-tabs consistently. It's either consistent spaces or tabs intermixed with spaces. At least, that's been my experience.
A tabbist would say the problem was that someone used spaces.
One of Dante's lesser hells is surely reserved for anyone that mixes tabs and spaces.
The issue really is that someone is not following guidelines (C, project, or implicit) and is not using tools that highlight such mistakes.
There is another level of hell reserved for those that use their own personal styles and conventions without paying attention to the existing code (or who just don't care).
Mixing tabs and spaces for indentation is demonic, while mixing tabs for indentation and spaces for alignment is the only good choice without redefining what tabs are.
> I'm sure they added tabs to give the convenience of being able to adjust the indentation to what I like
I don't think this is the case. It looks like the authors of those projects decided that a tab character always is 8 chars wide, and that one tab vs eight spaces thus only is a question of encoding the same thing. So they're quite far removed from the idea that each indent level should be a tab (which is what most "tab-proponents" argue for).