The NVDA code base uses a mix of CRLF and LF style line endings, with the preference being CRLF. LF style endings have been introduced prior to lint checking, and can causes issues when moving code or making changes. Many IDEs will normalize the line endings when editing files, causing larger than intended diffs in PRs.

In order to tackle part of many linting issues noted in #12261, we can normalize all files to use LF in the NVDA code base. This commit can be ignored with git blame by introducing a git ignore revs file.

The concerns around reviewing mass linting here can be ignored as we can review an empty diff quickly with git diff --ignore-cr-at-eol.

• .gitattributes PR Update .gitattributes to prefer LF #12816:
  • confirm translators aren't effected (eg python translation comments, multiline strings)
  • update .gitattributes to use LF
    • get a list of file extensions in the NVDA repo, confirm we want these to change
    • exclude *.t2t files so translators aren't affected
  • add a git ignore revs file
  • update dev and internal documentation
• Normalization PR:
  • Re-check in files with LF git add --renormalize .
  • Use git diff --ignore-cr-at-eol and ensure there is an empty diff.
  • Notify developers of the change, how to update PRs.
    - normalize all line endings to LF #16754
• Update git ignore revs file PR:
  • Update git ignore revs file with commit from normalization
  • normalize all line endings to LF #16754
• To consider:
  • Consider further documentation.
  • update changes for developers / notify developers: Line ending normalization has occurred - PRs may have merge conflicts #16761