Re: [PATCH] Doc format-patch: clarify --notes use case

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Oct 25, 2012, 10:25 UTC
Message-ID: <20121025102527.GO8390@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <1350855250-2844-4-git-send-email-philipoakley@iee.org>

On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 10:34:10PM +0100, Philip Oakley wrote:

Show 12 quoted lines

>  The expected use case of this is to write supporting explanation for
> -the commit that does not belong to the commit log message proper
> -when (or after) you create the commit, and include it in your patch
> -submission.  But if you can plan ahead and write it down, there may
> -not be a good reason not to write it in your commit message, and if
> -you can't, you can always edit the output of format-patch before
> -sending it out, so the practical value of this option is somewhat
> -dubious, unless your workflow is broken.
> +the commit, that does not belong to the commit log message proper,
> +and include it with the patch submission. The notes can be maintained
> +between versions of the patch series. You can also edit the output of
> +format-patch before sending.

I found the "you can also" slightly awkward here, as it was not clear why it was mentioned. I think the intent is "this is an alternative that does not involve the notes workflow", but it is not clear from the text why you would prefer the notes workflow. Here is what I queued instead, which tires to clarify that, and also mentions that this workflow needs additional setup to track rewritten commits:

diff --git a/Documentation/git-format-patch.txt b/Documentation/git-format-patch.txt
index 066dc8b..750b3fa 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-format-patch.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-format-patch.txt
@@ -196,13 +196,12 @@ The expected use case of this is to write supporting explanation for
 	after the three-dash line.
 +
 The expected use case of this is to write supporting explanation for
-the commit that does not belong to the commit log message proper
-when (or after) you create the commit, and include it in your patch
-submission.  But if you can plan ahead and write it down, there may
-not be a good reason not to write it in your commit message, and if
-you can't, you can always edit the output of format-patch before
-sending it out, so the practical value of this option is somewhat
-dubious, unless your workflow is broken.
+the commit that does not belong to the commit log message proper,
+and include it with the patch submission. While one can simply write
+these explanations after `format-patch` has run but before sending,
+keeping them as git notes allows them to be maintained between versions
+of the patch series (but see the discussion of the `notes.rewrite.*`
+configuration in linkgit:git-notes[1] to use this workflow).
 
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I've queued that and your other patches on top of jc/prettier-pretty-note.

-Peff