Re: [PATCH] git-send-email: add ~/.authinfo parsing

[Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>]

Michal Nazarewicz <mpn@google.com> writes:

> From: Michal Nazarewicz <mina86@mina86.com>
>
> Make git-send-email read password from a ~/.authinfo file instead of
> requiring it to be stored in git configuration, passed as command line
> argument or typed in.

Makes one wonder why .authinfo and not .netrc; 

http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/auth/Help-for-users.html

phrases it amusingly:

        “Netrc” files are usually called .authinfo or .netr
        nowadays .authinfo seems to be more popular and the
        auth-source library encourages this confusion by accepting
        both

Either way it still encourages a plaintext password to be on disk,
which may not be what we want, even though it may be slight if not
really much of an improvement.  Again the Help-for-users has this
amusing bit:

	You could just say (but we don't recommend it, we're just
	showing that it's possible)

	     password mypassword

	to use the same password everywhere. Again, DO NOT DO THIS
	or you will be pwned as the kids say.

> +The '~/.authinfo' file is read if Text::CSV Perl module is installed
> +on the system; if it's missing, a notification message will be printed
> +and the file ignored altogether.  The file should contain a line with
> +the following format:
> ++
> +  machine <domain> port <port> login <user> password <pass>

It is rather strange to require a comma-separated-values parser to
read a file format this simple, isn't it?

> ++
> +Contrary to other tools, 'git-send-email' does not support symbolic
> +port names like 'imap' thus `<port>` must be a number.

Perhaps you can convert at least some popular ones yourself?  After
all, the user may be using an _existing_ .authinfo/.netrc that she
has been using with other programs that do understand symbolic port
names.  Rather than forcing all such users to update their files,
the patch can work a bit harder for them and the world will be a
better place, no?