Francois Gouget wrote:
On Wed, 3 Aug 2011, Frédéric Delanoy wrote: [...]
-rem Removing non-existent directory +rem Removing nonexistent directory
[...]
There is apparently no hard rule on the usage of hypens between 'non' and a subsequent adjective, but I've seen lots of "non-" (sometimes even "non ") so I wouldn't call that a spelling error. Furthermore, the "non-" form is more readable IMHO
My paper dictionary lists a number of 'non-xxx' and 'nonxxx' words. It has 'nonexistent' and not 'non-existent'. The Merriam-Webster also prefers 'nonexistent'.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nonexistent
Mozilla did a pass through their code replacing 'onn-existent' with 'nonexistent':
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=564091
However I'll acknowledge that a number of other online dictionaries seem to accept both forms. Maybe the explanation is in the Cambridge Dictionaries; they have 'non-existent' in the British dictionary and 'nonexistent' in the US one.
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/non-existent http://dictionaries.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=nonexistent*1+0&dict=A
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/nonexistent http://www.thefreedictionary.com/non-existent http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/nonexistent http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/non-existent
Overall 'nonexistent' seemed better referenced in the dictionaries and more 'legitimate'. But I can leave either form as is if that's preferred.
It is not a spelling fix then and shouldn't be included in a "spelling fixes" patch. You could do a "Standardize to 'nonexistent'" patch but that would IMHO stretch the scope of this kind of janitorial fixes.
bye michael