[tz] tabs vs spaces

[Tobias Conradi]

On Thu, May 2, 2013 at 6:31 AM, Guy Harris <guy at alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>
> On May 1, 2013, at 9:09 PM, Tobias Conradi <mail.2012 at tobiasconradi.com> wrote:
>
>> What is the benefit of having more than one tab or one space as one separator?
>
> It lets people use whatever text editor they want, regardless of what it does with horizontal white space.
>
> It lets the columns line up naturally for human reading.
>
> It lets existing files (which have more than one tab in a row, at least for leading spaces) be read without having to reformat them.

If instead of space and tab the source files would only use tab, then
columns still can be lined up for human reading and no compatibility
inside the IANA time zone database would be broken?

Sadly the thread starter David Muir Sharnoff <lists at dave.sharnoff.org>
didn't yet reply to
http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/2013-May/019162.html, so one would
have a visualization of data containing spaces as separators.

-- 
Tobias Conradi
Rheinsberger Str. 18
10115 Berlin
Germany

http://tobiasconradi.com