Committing when changing source formatting?

Question

Is it accepted practice to commit even when you're just changing things like whitespace, code formatting, etc.?

Answer 1

Yes. If you need to do whitespace changes, doing them in a separate commit that contains only this kind of cleanup is the best practice. This avoids problems with trying to see what part of a giant diff is actual code changes, and what part is just formatting (cosmetic) changes.

That said, you should try to keep these kind of changes to a minimum, and only do it at all when it is necessary and compatible with whatever coding standards are used in your company / community / project / etc.