Please stop expanding tabs by default

[dgchrt]

Newly created packages produce package*.json files with their tabs expanded to a few spaces, which in turn won't respect editor configurations. This can be harmful to developers and should be avoided. Please refer to this article if you're new to the subject: https://alexandersandberg.com/tabs-for-accessibility/

[MylesBorins]

@diogoeichert what is you alternative suggestion? No indentations? Since many tools rely on the output of npm a change like this seems like it could be a breaking change.

If you have a specific proposal on how we should do things differently, such as respecting an exiting editor configuration, it might be a good idea to open a discussion or issue over on https://github.com/npm/rfcs

[ljharb]

a note for a future RFC, if one is written: ideally, I would expect package-lock/npm-shrinkwrap to use the same indentation as package.json, and ideally npm init should be able to respect an .editorconfig setting if available.

[dgchrt]

@MylesBorins quite the opposite, I'm suggesting keeping the indentation, not replacing it with spaces. This way it will work better with most tools, like you've mentioned. Thanks for the link, I'll have a look.

[dgchrt]

@ljharb the good news is that npm will respect the existing indentation in the files, if you fix them first. A simple sed -i "" "s/ /\t/g" package*.json will do.

[MylesBorins]

@diogoeichert if you would like to propose alternative behavior the appropriate next step would be to open an issue over at https://github.com/npm/rfcs/issues

[dgchrt]

Thanks, I've just created it: npm/rfcs#420