From: Junio C Hamano Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 04:18:55 GMT Subject: Re: [PATCH v2] Do not show "diff --git" metainfo with --no-prefix Message-ID: <7vy7aqs8r4.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org> In-Reply-To: Linus Torvalds writes: > We do not want to make it particularly easy for people to create > mind-bogglingly stupid diff output. 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.