On Thu, Feb 21, 2019 at 03:40:09PM -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Σταύρος Ντέντος  <stdedos@gmail.com> writes:
> > Would it make sense / be easy enough to have some clobbering check / flag?
> 
> Given that use of '-o' to redirect to a fresh/new directory would
> reduce the risk of such clobbering, and use of '-v' to force
> different filenames would reduce the risk of such clobbering,
> it seems to me that aborting the operation when we fail to open
> the output, without any option to override and allow clobbering,
> would make sense.  If existing files record 4 patch series
> 0001-x.patch, 0002-y.patch, 0003-z.patch, and 0004-w.patch, and you
> generate with "format-patch --allow-clobbering" a three-patch series,
> it would overwrite 0001 thru 0003 but will not remove 0004, so the
> end result will still be confusing.

I think a flag for this would be useful. For people that store tarballs
(or pristine-tar files) and patches in their repository, overwriting the
existing files is definitely desired.

My personal preference is that the flag be --no-clobber, but I can see
arguments for the other side as well.
-- 
brian m. carlson: Houston, Texas, US
OpenPGP: https://keybase.io/bk2204