From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.2 (2018-09-13) on dcvr.yhbt.net X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-3.9 required=3.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00,DKIM_SIGNED, DKIM_VALID,DKIM_VALID_AU,HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS, MAILING_LIST_MULTI,SPF_HELO_PASS,SPF_PASS shortcircuit=no autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.2 Received: from vger.kernel.org (vger.kernel.org [23.128.96.18]) by dcvr.yhbt.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 41DE21F66F for ; Tue, 10 Nov 2020 23:23:04 +0000 (UTC) Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1731713AbgKJXXB (ORCPT ); Tue, 10 Nov 2020 18:23:01 -0500 Received: from pb-smtp21.pobox.com ([173.228.157.53]:57021 "EHLO pb-smtp21.pobox.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1726706AbgKJXXA (ORCPT ); Tue, 10 Nov 2020 18:23:00 -0500 Received: from pb-smtp21.pobox.com (unknown [127.0.0.1]) by pb-smtp21.pobox.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id E52CF10F987; Tue, 10 Nov 2020 18:22:58 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from junio@pobox.com) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha1; c=relaxed; d=pobox.com; h=from:to:cc :subject:references:date:in-reply-to:message-id:mime-version :content-type; s=sasl; bh=CjqkQG+gHeHeWbLkfx1XHfe8a8o=; b=RMHB5i fXAU6pv5kECFWBfagO9zRIChSmlQTB8Sfa57fkn0txRAc/BsfEjUh1pk5L+m/UQf 7AydYfKAzKs7KR4McLlJ97ED6wGczad206DRhh4+kSYjay+FRL5zl0WGhKGDklIH gArT6AUr8MUSxW5xzqMimVoyBDCZs9rEocRuk= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=pobox.com; h=from:to:cc :subject:references:date:in-reply-to:message-id:mime-version :content-type; q=dns; s=sasl; b=MICRj16CwrY3qhboy3qiyABwxNSsuvLC tuaSelLv2eb+5gqwzGR6xbYGdqv0O9cyKSnE+IzYSFhhznQZ3mKwApirjN6HYvwL gxoC4IA9x6GKCaQilp7kvDekyBj1Iwc5oswhh93xnMekc0jK0uWJZdYlqFYCG10j muEJr1ZG1D0= Received: from pb-smtp21.sea.icgroup.com (unknown [127.0.0.1]) by pb-smtp21.pobox.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id DE7F410F986; Tue, 10 Nov 2020 18:22:58 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from junio@pobox.com) Received: from pobox.com (unknown [34.74.119.39]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by pb-smtp21.pobox.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 330CB10F985; Tue, 10 Nov 2020 18:22:56 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from junio@pobox.com) From: Junio C Hamano To: Johannes Schindelin Cc: Brandon Richardson , Git Mailing List Subject: Re: format-patch: "magic" mbox timestamp References: Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2020 15:22:54 -0800 In-Reply-To: (Johannes Schindelin's message of "Wed, 11 Nov 2020 00:12:05 +0100 (CET)") Message-ID: User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/27.1 (gnu/linux) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Pobox-Relay-ID: A9EDAB06-23AB-11EB-B76E-D609E328BF65-77302942!pb-smtp21.pobox.com Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Johannes Schindelin writes: > The original magic timestamp, however, was the one I reintroduced, and as > you can see from the part I quoted above, I only imitated the original > script. That's almost a lifetime ago that I totally forgot that it was original a shell script. It indeed does this: + case "$mbox" in + t) + echo 'From nobody Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001' ;# UNIX "From" line + mailScript="$mailScript"' + s|^|Subject: [PATCH'"$num"'] |' + ;; which clearly shows that "nobody" was chosen to mimic a real mailbox (i.e. unlike what Brandon said in the other message, the may not have "@" after ). In any case, I think what's more important is after 15 years, if any implementation of the /etc/magic database actually take advantage of that magic date as the "magic" signal to identify a format-patch output. Despite the wishes of original authors and designers of Git and its format-patch output, perhaps no /etc/magic author noticed it, in which case it is safe to use other randomly picked dates, or the timestamp of underlying commits. Otherwise, changing the "magic" timestamp would introduce a needless regression.