[no-tabs] allow exceptions

What rule do you want to change?

no-tabs (currently on eslint 6.5.1)

Does this change cause the rule to produce more or fewer warnings?

fewer warnings

How will the change be implemented?

New option.

Please provide some example code that this change will affect:

if (inTabIndentedCode) {
⇥	// if (commented) {
⇥	// ⇥	codeInBlocks();
⇥	// }
⇥	hasProblems();
}

const also = some`
⇥	string⇥	${literals}
⇥	use⇥	${tabulators}
`;

… // rules:
	'indent': ['error', 'tab'],
	'no-tabs': ['error', { 'allowIndentationTabs': true }],

What does the rule currently do for this code?

It complains about Unexpected tab character inside the commented-out code and in the string string literal, which is too strict imo.

What will the rule do after it’s changed?

I would propose to add some configuration options that either

• could allow lines matching a certain regex
• could allow lines in a certain AST context, e.g. string literals or comments

so that the rule would accept above code examples but still complain about tabulator characters elsewhere.

[mdjermanovic]

Closing per our rules policies.

[kaicataldo]

Understood, thank you. I think it would make sense to make the configuration option also accept an object with the following signature:

{
    allowIndentationTabs?: boolean,
    allowInComments?: boolean,
    allowInStrings?: boolean,
}

We could do this in a backwards compatible way and eventually remove the current string option in a future major release.

Thoughts?