=C2=A0 cluttering the mailed diff when changing a bugs description

[Wolfgang Kufner]

When a bugs description is changed I sometimes get mail like this in gmail:

 ProcEnviron:
- PATH=(custom, user)
- LANG=en_US.UTF-8
- SHELL=/bin/bash
+ PATH=(custom, user)
+ LANG=en_US.UTF-8
+ SHELL=/bin/bash
 ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-11.36-generic

The reason these lines are marked as changed reveals itself in when I tell gmail to "Show original":

  ProcEnviron:
- PATH=3D(custom, user)
- LANG=3Den_US.UTF-8
- SHELL=3D/bin/bash
+ =C2=A0PATH=3D(custom, user)
+ =C2=A0LANG=3Den_US.UTF-8
+ =C2=A0SHELL=3D/bin/bash
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-11.36-generic

I do not know where those "=C2=A0=" strings come from but they lead to a cluttered, hard to read diff that sometimes shows many more lines as changed than it should.

[Wolfgang Kufner (wolfgangkufner)]

Since filing this report I have been mailed about 3 bug description changes and they were all fine.

[Deryck Hodge (deryck)]

Can you provide some of the bugs numbers for which you were emailed these types of changes?

[Wolfgang Kufner (wolfgangkufner)]

Bug 439188
Bug 518002
Bug 425165 Oliver
Bug 500786 Didier Roche on 2010-01-05
Bug 472687

Looking back through my mail I found 3 where I was the one who changed the description (via the web interface) and two where others changed it.

[Deryck Hodge (deryck)]

Comparing the raw text in the js bug cache when viewing source on some of these, I see characters like "\n\u00a0" added in the new descriptions. I'm not sure if the inline description editor is adding these, or if something else is doing it.

Cut-n-paste from an editor into the widget on Launchpad, maybe?

[Wolfgang Kufner (wolfgangkufner)]

>Cut-n-paste from an editor into the widget on Launchpad, maybe?

Looking at bug 518002 where I was the one editing the description: I do not remember all details, but I never paste the whole edited text back in (old lines plus new lines). I might have pasted the new lines in, but that would not cause those added characters somewhere else, in the old lines?

[Wolfgang Kufner (wolfgangkufner)]

Tried and failed to trigger the bug the following way:
Copying the whole description (of bug 524886) from the web page (not from the widget) into tomboy. Editing one line there. Acitvating the widget and deleting everything in there. Pasting the whole edited description from tomboy to the widget. All under today's lucid iso 64bit loopback booted from hd.
The mail I got correctly had one line marked as changed.

[Wolfgang Kufner (wolfgangkufner)]

Just got mailed another one of those cluttered diffs as a result of a "description changed" comment in bug 496093 directly after comment 87.

[Wolfgang Kufner (wolfgangkufner)]

Another one. This time after changing the bug descritption of bug 563815 myself. I typed some lines at the top, copied in some commands (from the gnome-terminal iirc) (also at the top).

[Wolfgang Kufner (wolfgangkufner)]

Another one. This time after my comment #7 + summary change + description change in bug 584266. All done in the web interface. No cutting and pasting from somewhere outside the web interface. No cutting and pasting at all iirc.
The 3 changes where all put into one email, btw.

[Dmitry Shachnev (mitya57)]

Just a note: "=C2=A0" is a non-breaking space ( ) in UTF-8.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

To preserve indentation in bug descriptions, Launchpad converts spaces at the start of a line to non-breaking spaces in HTML. (For example, view the source for this bug report and search for " " without quotes.)

It is unnecessary to do the same when sending plain-text e-mail, but perhaps Launchpad is/was trying to do it anyway.