Although VTL in this user guide is often displayed with newlines and whitespaces, the VTL shown below

#set( $fruits = ["apple", "pear", "orange", "strawberry"] )

#foreach( $fruit in $fruits )
  $fruit
#end

is equally valid as the following snippet that Geir Magnusson Jr. posted to the Velocity user mailing list to illustrate a completely unrelated point:

Send me #set($foo=["$10 and ","a pie"])#foreach($a in $foo)$a#end please.

Velocity's behaviour is to gobble up excess whitespace. The preceding directive can be written as:

Send me
#set( $foo = ["$10 and ","a pie"] )
#foreach( $a in $foo )
$a
#end
please.

or as

Send me
#set($foo       = ["$10 and ","a pie"])
                #foreach            ($a in $foo )$a
         #end please.

In each case the output will be the same.