git-stripspace

Trim whitespace from a file

$ cat [path/to/file] | git stripspace

$ cat [path/to/file] | git stripspace --strip-comments

$ git stripspace --comment-lines < [path/to/file]

git stripspace [--strip-comments]

--strip-comments
    Removes lines that begin with comment characters. What exactly is a comment character depends on the file type and is defined in .gitattributes files.

The `git-stripspace` command is a utility to filter unwanted whitespace from blobs. It's primarily designed for use within Git's internal machinery, particularly for tasks like cleaning up patch files or preparing content for storage. It intelligently removes leading and trailing whitespace, collapses multiple consecutive whitespace characters into single spaces, and ensures a consistent newline character at the end of the input.

While not intended for direct interactive use by end-users, understanding `git-stripspace` is valuable for those interested in Git's internal workings, especially when debugging patching issues or contributing to the Git project itself. Its behavior is specifically tailored to handle the nuances of text files commonly encountered in source code repositories.

This command is mainly intended for internal Git use and may not be stable for external scripting or direct user interaction. The exact whitespace handling behavior can be nuanced and may depend on the Git configuration.

Typically, you wouldn't invoke `git stripspace` directly from the command line. Instead, Git tools such as `git apply` utilize it internally when processing patches.

The tool aims to standardize whitespace, converting sequences of spaces, tabs, and newlines into a single space, and adding a newline at the end of the content if one doesn't exist. The `--strip-comments` option modifies this behavior to discard comment lines.

git-apply(1), gitattributes(5)