how do you strip leading white spaces in c-mode or similar?

[Johna]

Hi, I googled around to no avail.
Basically I am frustrated with the default indentation in c-mode (or
similar modes)
because it inserts unnecessary white space(s) on empty lines.
I want all empty lines to contain nothing but '\n'.
Instead they contain "\n\t" or "\n    ".
The preferred solution that I am looking for is a way to inhibit white
space insertion
on empty lines across all modes that have anything to do with
programming languages.

Example:
------------------------------------
int foo(int x)
{
      int y = x/2;

// the preceding empty line contains superfluous and annoying white
space!
      return y;
}
-------------------------------------