Possible to ignore tabs in Java multi-line comments?

[mwnorman]

I have set 'Comments' to be important for Java source compares
so that I don't miss any important documentation any developer
has entered in the file.
However, I am getting false-positives due to tab/space differences
within a multi-line Java comment:

lineno
19    /* 1) Template was deleted, or
20     * 2) Template was updated, or   <- these three lines in highlighted red
21     * 3) Bogus record exists in DB  <- but only difference is tab vs. space
22     */                              <-  before the '*' character

i.e. one version of the file has:

19 - four spaces
20 - 1 tab then 1 space
21 - 1 tab then 1 space
22 - 1 tab then 1 space

while the other version has had its tabs converted to four spaces:

19 - four spaces
20 - five spaces
21 - five spaces
22 - five spaces

Any suggestions on how to handle this?

[Aaron]

Hello,

Whitespace within an Important grammar will be marked as an important change if there is a difference. You could delete the "Comments" grammar element (or make a cloned copy of the file format, and delete the grammar from the cloned copy). This would revert the text to "Everything Else" text, which can mark whitespace as unimportant while the text itself would be important.

Adding the ability to mark whitespace as unimportant within grammars is on our wishlist.

With Java files, you could also process them with an external conversion to tidy the whitespace. This would actually alter the files, giving them the same whitespace characters, and is available for download in our Alternatives section, here:

http://www.scootersoftware.com/download.php?zz=kb_moreformats