Re: git-send-email: Send with mutt(1)

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Nov 7, 2023, 17:48 UTC
Message-ID: <20231107174803.GA507007@coredump.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <ZUocFhmPHstwKCkZ@devuan>

On Tue, Nov 07, 2023 at 12:14:21PM +0100, Alejandro Colomar wrote:

> I'm trying to use mutt(1) with git-send-email(1).  Is that possible?
> I tried --sendmail-cmd=mutt, but am getting strange errors.
> The reason I want to send with mutt(1) is because it can encrypt and
> sign mail (with some tweaks), which git-send-mail(1) doesn't.

I think there's a lot of overlap between what git-send-email does and what mutt does, to the point that you probably don't need to use send-email at all.

I assume what you want out of send-email here is the actual generation of patch emails. But under the hood that is all done by git-format-patch anyway. So for example if you do:

  git format-patch --stdout origin..HEAD >patches
  mutt -f patches

And then you can use mutt's "resend-message" function to send each one. I use config like this:

  macro index,pager b ":set edit_headers=yes<enter><resend-message>:set edit_headers=no<enter>"

If you're sending a long series, it's helpful to pre-populate various headers in the format-patch command with "--to", etc. I usually do so by sending the cover letter directly via mutt, and then using some perl hackery to convert those headers into format-patch args. The script I use is below (it will also, when run without a terminal, generate the patch summary for the cover letter; I use it with "r!my-script" while writing the cover letter in vim).

(This script is what I use every day, so it should be fairly robust. But it is also over 15 years old, so I don't promise there isn't a simpler way to do some of what it does ;) ).

-- >8 --
#!/bin/sh
upstream_branch() {
  current=`git symbolic-ref HEAD`
  upstream=`git for-each-ref --format='%(upstream)' "$current"`
  if test -n "$upstream"; then
    echo $upstream
  else
    echo origin
  fi
}

get_reply_headers() {
  perl -ne '
    if (defined $opt) {
      if (/^\s+(.*)/) {
        $val .= " $1";
        next;
      }
      print "--$opt=", quotemeta($val), " ";
      $opt = $val = undef;
    }
    if (/^(cc|to):\s*(.*)/i) {
      $opt = lc($1);
      $val = $2;
    }
    elsif (/^message-id:\s*(.*)/i) {
      $opt = "in-reply-to";
      $val = $1;
    }
    elsif (/^subject:\s*\[PATCH v(\d+)/i) {
      print "-v$1 ";
    }
    elsif (/^$/) {
      last;
    }
  '
}

format_patch() {
  git format-patch -s --stdout --from "$@"
}

has_nonoption=
for i in "$@"; do
  case "$i" in
    -[0-9]*) has_nonoption=yes ;;
    -*) ;;
     *) has_nonoption=yes
  esac
done

: ${REPLY:=$HOME/patch} test -e "$REPLY" && eval "set -- `get_reply_headers <\"$REPLY\"` \"\$@\"" test "$has_nonoption" = "yes" || set -- "$@" `upstream_branch`

if test -t 1; then
  format_patch "$@" >.mbox
  mutt -e 'set sort=mailbox-order' -f .mbox
  rm -f .mbox
else
  format_patch "$@" |
  perl -lne '
    if (/^Subject: (.*)/) {
      $subject = $1;
    }
    elsif ($subject && /^\s+(.*)/) {
      $subject .= " $1";
    }
    elsif ($subject) {
      print $subject;
      $subject = undef;
    }
  ' |
  sed -e 's/\[PATCH /[/' \
      -e 's/]/]:/' \
      -e 's/^/  /'
  echo
  format_patch --cover-letter "$@" |
  sed -ne '/|/,/^$/p; /^-- /q'
fi