Re: [PATCH] Teach git-commit about commit message templates.

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jul 23, 2007, 17:12 UTC
Message-ID: <7vfy3fkpr8.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>
In-Reply-To: <46A48949.1020501@midwinter.com>

Steven Grimm <koreth@midwinter.com> writes:

Show 15 quoted lines

> With the patch, my intent was:
>
> * Strip off all comment lines
> * Strip off all Signed-off-by: lines
> * Trim whitespace
> * If the result has no content (! -s file), abort.
> * If a template file was specified:
>   * Strip off all comment and Signed-off-by: lines from the template
>   * Trim whitespace from the template
>   * If the resulting trimmed template is the same as the trimmed
> commit message, abort.
>
> So I guess before getting to the specifics of the code, I'll ask: does
> the above make sense as a design? I wanted to preserve the existing
> behavior in the absence of a template.

Offhand, an "interesting" side effect of the above I can see is that you will cry "wolf" if the only thing the user did is to add his own Signed-off-by: line ;-) But that is sane in the context of coming up with totally new commit log message.

I am more worried about how this should interact with cases where you usually do not start the log message from scratch. For example, are there cases / policies where being able to use templates to leave comments on merge commits are needed? Squash-commits? Perhaps "apply this template but only when you have hand resolved a conflicting merges"?

Or even the case of amending a commit made by somebody else, without changing the tree contents, in order to make the commit log message to conform to the company standard?