Re: [RFC] series headers

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jul 10, 2007, 06:57 UTC
Message-ID: <7vejjgsq3y.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0707100126250.6977@iabervon.org>

Daniel Barkalow <barkalow@iabervon.org> writes:

> I'd like to be able to get format-patch to produce a [PATCH 0/N] message, 
> with a message that's actually in my repository, plus various goodies 
> generated either from diffing the ends of the series or by running through 
> the log an extra time to pick up summary information.

So far, so good.

Show 6 quoted lines

> As far as implementing this... would it be sane to make struct 
> rev_info.commit_format a callback, so that the code to generate an email 
> message can be somewhere that's easy to use to generate an email that 
> isn't for a commit in the log? I don't *think* git's quite fast enough for 
> the indirect jump to a callback instead of an if tree for an enum will 
> actually hurt us.

I suspect that temptation to touch rev_info.commit_format arises purely because you are thinking about making 0/N a (perhaps fake) commit. I do not see a point in that.

What is the workflow?

 $ work work work, commit commit commit, reorder and perfect
 $ git tag end-of-series
 ... in $EDITOR, edit the [0/N] message
 $ git format-patch origin..end-of-series
 ... which notices end-of-series, and perhaps internally runs
 ... $ git-shortlog origin..end-of-series
 ... $ git diff --stat --summary origin..end-of-series
 ... $ git cat-file tag end-of-series
 ... to create 0/N which it did not do so far in
 ... 0000-cover-letter.txt
 $ git-send-email 0*.txt

Would it be so much better than this workflow which would probably not need to touch much of the 'commit formatting" code that is used for [1/N]..[N/N] messages?

 $ work work work, commit commit commit, reorder and perfect
 $ git format-patch --with-cover origin..HEAD
 ... which notices --with-cover, and perhaps does
 ... $ git-shortlog origin..HEAD
 ... $ git diff --stat --summary origin..HEAD
 ... $ echo "*** BLURB HERE ***"
 ... to create 0/N which it did not do so far in
 ... 0000-cover-letter.txt
 $ $EDITOR 0000-cover-letter.txt
 $ git-send-email 0*.txt