Code indentation converted from tabs to spaces: is it trackable in git?

I'm initially开发者_StackOverflow trying to adapt soft tabs in my projects but some testing with a python project tracked by git is showing issues; naturally git thinks everything has changed, and that is not what I'd prefer.

While git diff understands to drop whitespace from comparison with -w switch, there's no such switch for git commit.

Is the transition impossible to do nicely or is there a way to achieve git to ignore the sudden change?

Can git automatically switch between spaces and tabs?