Re: [PATCH 0/6] more automation for cover letter generation

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Apr 18, 2009, 18:31 UTC
Message-ID: <7v8wlxx18c.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <1240071381-25165-1-git-send-email-ft@bewatermyfriend.org>

Frank Terbeck <ft@bewatermyfriend.org> writes:

Show 5 quoted lines

> The following setup would suit me pretty well:
>
> [format]
>     coverletter = true
>     coveronepatch = false

Nobody wants a cover letter to a single patch, so a better way would probably be:

	'yes' means default behaviour, that is add cover letter for
	multiple-patch series, non for a single patch;

	'no' means no cover; and

	'always' means a probably insane "cover even a single patch".

In any case, because this new feature is way too late to be in the upcoming 1.6.3 release anyway, I think it is a saner approach to add a command line option "--cover=yes" to "cover if multiple", "--cover=always" to "cover even a single patch", and "--cover=no" to countermand a configured "format.cover" the user may have in the configuration from the command line.

>     overwritecoverletter = false

I do not think it is particularly a good idea, and it is a good idea to have it in the configuration.

 - Why not protect the earlier patch output?  People often tweak messages
   (both above and below the three-dash lines) in them.

 - Isn't this pretty much per invocation?

I can understand (I may not be enthused about it) a new --clobber={yes,no} command line option to allow/forbid clobbering the existing files, and you may want to add --clobber=patches to allow clobbering only the patches but not cover (which I do not think makes much sense, though).