Will text be lost by over extending the right column boundary?

[Thomas Bullock]

Thanks, Christian, for your complete explanation.  Your comments are a great relief!  These will be added to my notes for new documentation patch writers.  Now getting closer to a patch release.

Tom

-----Original Message-----
From: Christian Stimming [mailto:stimming at tuhh.de] 
Sent: Thursday, July 29, 2010 3:19 AM
To: Thomas Bullock
Cc: gnucash-devel (gnucash-devel at gnucash.org)
Subject: Re: Will text be lost by over extending the right column boundary?

Zitat von Tom Bullock <tbullock at nd.edu>:
> My question is what latitude is there in paying attention to that  
> right boundary?  Will any characters being listed in columns 81 and  
> after be dropped?

No, none of the characters will be dropped. The line length (right  
column boundary) has effects only when viewing the XML file in the  
text editor, but it has no effects whatsoever on the result.

> If not, how much latitude is there in the system?  What do  
> experienced patch writers use?

The line length is only relevant for the convenience of editing in the  
text editor. Very long lines (i.e. much more than 80 characters) are  
inconvenient in several editors, so we suggest to avoid them. But this  
is only a suggestion and there is no enforcement in whatever direction.

As for patches: Patches are by definition line-based. This means very  
long lines (i.e. with much more than 80 characters) would make it  
inconvenient to spot the actual changes quickly. Say, only one single  
word changed, but the line is very long - then the concerned changes  
in the patch is a very long line in which one needs to look for the  
actual change if you want to proof-read it. This is easier if the  
lines are "not too long".

But again, line length is purely a suggestion and we have no  
hard-limit whatsoever in that area. You don't need to spend any more  
time on this issue. Just write your text in a form that is convenient  
to *you* and that's it. Thanks a lot for your contributions!

Regards,

Christian