- Linus Torvalds added hidden tabs to Kconfig to challenge parsers that can’t handle them.
- Tabs were intentionally added to the common Kconfig file for page sizes to expose faulty parsers.
- Torvalds believes parsers unable to handle tabs shouldn’t be parsing kernel Kconfig files, aiming to force fixes.
I’m honestly on Torvalds’ side here.
Tabs are a necessary part of the tooling and configuration files. Any tool which doesn’t properly handle files that are correctly formatted for other tools is… a broken tool.