Is there a way to automatically strip out trailing whitespace in code on commit to CVS?

Hi!

We're using CVS, on every release we have to synchronise two different branches of code, and in every release cycle it's the same story, whitespace problems causing errors and wasting time.

I'm looking for a way to automatically strip out trailing whitespace upon committing a file to CVS, unless explicitly forbidden, say by a command-line option. Is there a solution already available? If not, would anyone be interested if I wrote a plugin to do this?

Regards, Steven

From stackoverflow

• Most source management tools have options to compare two files ignoring whitespace. Have you checked for this?

• You could try using a compare utility like Beyond Compare which you can configure to ignore whitespace and other trivial differences between files. Or you could maybe configure the existing compare tool you're using to do something similar?

  Colin Fine : If the problem is CVS insisting that the versions are different when it does the update, an external tool won't help. Your 'strip on commit' is the best option. You can put a trigger in CVSROOT/commitinfo, but you'll have to write it.

  Darth Continent : Could write a VBScript or something which would automatically iterate through the local repository and strip trailing whitespace just prior to your doing a commit, but that would probably not be the most elegant workaround. :-D