Re: git format-patch on empty commit

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Jan 11, 2016, 21:09 UTC
Message-ID: <20160111210915.GA21173@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqegdnx1xx.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 01:04:42PM -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Show 10 quoted lines

> So I think skipping no-op commit from the output was done pretty
> much deliberately and it is definitely not a bug.  I however do not
> think it is incorrect to say that it is a lack of feature that
> nobody so far found necessary or beneficial.
> 
> I would not refuse to consider adding a new option to "format-patch"
> to emit such a no-op message, and add a "having no patch is OK, just
> record a no-op commit" option to "am", though.  But I do not see a
> clear benefit from such change--it sounds more like a set of
> "because we could" not "because we need to" changes to me.

I think we are more or less on the same page. To me it is less "because we could" but that some people seem to find empty commits useful in their workflow (which is why we have "commit --allow-empty"), and if you use such a workflow, it is probably reasonable for "format-patch | am" or "rebase" to be trusted to preserve the history (at least with an option).

I do not use such workflows myself[1], so I will leave open the question of whether they have a benefit. :)

-Peff

[1] Though I will confess to finding "commit --allow-empty" quite useful
    when debugging.