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> There is a conflict between XML (including DITA) and source control programs like Git. XML by default does not care about white space like carriage returns, tabs, spaces, it works at a level above plain text. You can change a few spaces and carriage returns in a DITA XML file and there will be no validation errors from a DITA or XML viewpoint. An XML editor like XMetal or Oxygen or FrameMaker won't care. But those white space changes are noticed by git, which is set up to notice ANY change to a source code file, which is what programmers want.
When we moved from a Vasont CMS to SDL CMS, despite using the same editor (XMetaL) in both environments, I noticed that spaces began to appear at the end of every paragraph. I thought this was another writer doing it, and spent time contemplating whether this might somehow be a good typing practice just in case you wanted to add another sentence. No, I thought, this is dumb, and I started passive-aggressively removing them, but no, it was the softwareâthe spaces were reintroduced without anyone else touching the files. I caught myself before I went off the deep end (or, perhaps, just afterwards).
(No, fortunately, Git was not involved. No, it made no difference in the rendered output. Yes, it was passive-aggressive to change them back without asking if someone was introducing them. Yes, I was wasting effort.)
Iâll have to see if I can find the setting to turn this behavior off in future.
âSteve
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