Whitespace

Definitions

1. Characters in source code that represent empty space — spaces, tabs, newlines, and carriage returns — which most languages use for formatting and readability, though some (Python, YAML, Haskell) use it as syntactically meaningful indentation that defines code blocks or data structure.

   In plain English: The invisible characters like spaces, tabs, and line breaks that affect how code looks and, in some languages, how it behaves.

   Example: "The whole PR is a whitespace diff because someone's editor auto-converted tabs to spaces across every file."

Related Terms

• Locale
• Operator
• Pretty Print
• Shorthands
• Switch Statement
• Code Block
• Code Format
• Comment Block
• Construct