Re: [PATCH 1/2] format-patch: fix dashdash usage

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Nov 26, 2009, 19:57 UTC
Message-ID: <7vd4355aaw.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <1259262720-24077-2-git-send-email-felipe.contreras@gmail.com>

Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com> writes:

> Otherwise 'git format-patch <committish> -- <non-existent-path>' doesn't
> work.

Instead of "doesn't work", I really wished you wrote something like:

    $ git format-patch <commit> -- <path>

    complains that <path> does not exist in the current work tree and the
    user needs to explicitly specify "--", even though the user _did_ give
    a "--".  This is because it incorrectly removes "--" from the command
    line arguments that is later passed to setup_revisions().

Remember that you are trying to help somebody who has to write Release Notes out of "git log" output.

I actually have a bigger question, though. Does it even make sense to allow pathspecs to format-patch? We sure are currently loose and take them, but I doubt it is by design.

The patch itself looks good and is a candidate 'maint' material, if the answer to the above question is a convincing "yes, because ...".