Re: [PATCH] have merge put FETCH_HEAD data in commit message

> Quoting Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>:
> Subject: Re: [PATCH] have merge put FETCH_HEAD data in commit message
>
>> "Michael S. Tsirkin" <mst@dev.mellanox.co.il> writes:
>> 
>> >> > 3. if I want to have some text coming *before* the commit
>> >> >    message ignored, there's no way to do this
>> >> > 4. there's no way to override the subject from within the message
>> >> >    (like there is with author/From line)
>> >> 
>> >> How about this?
>> >
>> > Looks good. What about 3?
>> 
>> When e-mailed message has garbage at the beginning (e.g. "Hi!"),
>> git users can either run "commit --amend" immiediately after
>> "git am",
>
> This one would overwrite the authorship information though,
> would it not? I actually wished several times for an --amend-message
> commit flag that would only edit the message, preserving the author
> (and possibly date?) metadata.
> Of course, I simply copy the author and pass it in --author,
> but it's somewhat awkward to do. Do others notice this?
>
> *Maybe* git can be even smarter, and notice that only
> commit message has changed, and preserve the author automatically
> in this case? I haven't looked at how hard that would be to do.
>
> <rant>
> I actually find it awkward that author/summary information is never
> shown during git commit - sometimes one does git commit
> on a machine where GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL has not been setup
> correctly, and the result often is mst@mst-desktop.(none).
> Or people sometimes forget that the first line will show up
> in the pretty=short summary and the result is that what
> ends up being there is just 2 first lines of the long description.
>
> One has to remember to always do git log --pretty=short
> after commit to verify that one did get these details right.
>
> Ideas:
> - Maybe have git-commit display shortlog summary for commit just created?
> - Maybe put Author: (or From:? and maybe Subject:?) line in the pre-formatted
>   commit message, and let the user edit them?
> </rant>
>
>> or edit the mbox with editor before running
>> "applymbox", so the need has not been felt much us, and that is
>> the primary reason why it is not there.  Additionally we do not
>> think it is particularly a good practice to have "cover letters"
>> at the top (cf. $gmane/5418), so it was never high priority for
>> us to add that feature to encourage such a practice.
>> 
>> Having said that, on top of the recent work by Don Zickus on
>> mailinfo, you _could_ add support for scissors "^-- >8 --$" if
>> you want.
>
> OK, I thought about this a bit - if the message includes a
> cover letter, I think it's also likely to have an incorrect
> subject too. So how about simply ignoring text before
> Subject:/From: lines? This makes more sense, for me, than
> inventing yet another git-specific convention. Does this for you?