Re: [PATCH v2] Do not show "diff --git" metainfo with --no-prefix

Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> writes:

Although the discussion was triggered by that Tortoise thing, the RFC patch was not about helping that. That's a new feature asked long after we went into rc freeze, and I am not interested in discussing such a feature, especially when I am sick.

The only objective was to make sure that a patch that is not kosher in git-apply's eyes is not marked with "diff --git"; otherwise, its output will confuse git-apply. As --no-prefix will be a new feature in 1.5.4, we would be shipping with a known-to-be-bad new feature that is --no-prefix, unless we do something about it. Fixing that breakage was the sole motivation behind my patch.

I think a reasonable short-term solution might be to disable any git specific stuff (renames, rewrites, etc) when --no-prefix and its friends are used, along with the patch you are commenting on to remove " --git" from the header. That would at least make sure that the --no-prefix feature is safe.