From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jacob Keller Subject: Re: storing cover letter of a patch series? Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2015 14:03:48 -0700 Message-ID: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Cc: Junio C Hamano , Git List To: Philip Oakley X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Thu Sep 10 23:04:34 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git-2@plane.gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.180.67]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Za911-0004bu-Lb for gcvg-git-2@plane.gmane.org; Thu, 10 Sep 2015 23:04:20 +0200 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751324AbbIJVEJ (ORCPT ); Thu, 10 Sep 2015 17:04:09 -0400 Received: from mail-io0-f174.google.com ([209.85.223.174]:35312 "EHLO mail-io0-f174.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1750877AbbIJVEI (ORCPT ); Thu, 10 Sep 2015 17:04:08 -0400 Received: by ioiz6 with SMTP id z6so76032538ioi.2 for ; Thu, 10 Sep 2015 14:04:07 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:from:date:message-id:subject:to :cc:content-type; bh=eiLnbo8k8wxFGbsF+ObcmYJ9u5Zm4+naeZXFxXNAWtg=; b=e0m9Nn9kZnAWC9gszvzc0mt0kAgXkXXa85nWRi9H6OuGzREL/A9Ib96a9AJVbk30RB cGuQvAoJQGWWKNaelsH2Ksa5d2E+neJzmpL7FSNKcM+Nku8+zQpF0UeZQWC+y4emmXEi RYhHfY5dCvNEA6GsSYloc5/jqmjSEPU3m+a2S6k8wdrBuYU5KLFjC2dUSUwJN5d9kjUV kzMwuH0EeLqTHCghzh64xyjeDvg8GztvwubxSzjfuIyXA9zKG/3u9tVrpseWzBBCxVyt pIvYBdodvidahulVKjFdQ39cr206iamvUZWTlqNyaGgb2fGbRzd2j03Dsed+uOCgES4W 0TxA== X-Received: by 10.107.166.201 with SMTP id p192mr31198561ioe.0.1441919047755; Thu, 10 Sep 2015 14:04:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.107.132.155 with HTTP; Thu, 10 Sep 2015 14:03:48 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 1:09 PM, Philip Oakley wrote: > From: "Jacob Keller" >> >> On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 11:44 AM, Junio C Hamano >> wrote: >>> >>> Jacob Keller writes: >>> >>>> I hadn't thought of separating the cover letter from git-send-email. >>>> That would be suitable for me. >>> >>> >>> Yeah, I said this number of times over time, and I said it once >>> recently in another thread, but I think it was a mistake to allow >>> git-send-email to drive format-patch. It may appear that it will >>> make things convenient in the perfect world where no user makes >>> mistakes, but people are not perfect in real life. Expecting them >>> to be is being naive. >>> >> >> Yep. I didn't even know cover-letter was an option of format-patch >> only thought it was in send-email. >> > Actually, the one feature I'd like (I think) is to be able to join together > the empty commit mechanism and the cover letter mechanism within format > patch so that: > > * the empty commit message would detected and automatically become the [0/N] > in the patch series (without need to say --cover-letter) > > * the cover letter would still have some 'template' markings to say "*** > insert what's changed here***" or smilar (with option to exclude them). > > That way, when starting a series / branch, the first item would be to add > the explanatory 'empty commit' that states the requirements of what one > hopes to achieve (a key cover letter content), which is then followed by > commits that move toward that goal. > > The series can then be rebased as the user develops the code, and that cover > note can be edited as required during the rebase. > > When it comes time to show it to the list, the format patch will *know* from > the empty commit that it is the [0/N] cover letter and (perhaps -option) add > the appropriate markers ready for editing. > > The user edits the cover letter with the extra 'what's changed' / interdiff > / whatever, and sends. sendmail barfs if the user hasn't edited the markers. > > This could also work with the sendmail patch formating (though I've never > used that workflow) as now the cover letter becomes automatic for the > upstream. > > Philip If there was a way to store this empty commit message tagged as "cover letter" that could work well, though generally I prefer the non-fast-forward merges as this shows you where the series ended *and* began. It's somewhat confusing to newer users.. and this doesn't get rebased very well either. Some way to indicate a particular "empty" commit is actually a cover letter seems easy enough. This seems like the way that I was thinking. Using "edit description" of git-branch seems also to be pretty effective for this, even if it doesn't get shared across remotes. (not really a necessary feature for what I do). But having some way to indicate "cover letter" which gets used as the beginning of a log message when doing a particular "merge --tip-as-cover" or something like Junio suggested above seems like the nicest approach. Regards, Jake