Re: git send-email -v

From: Jacob Keller <jacob.keller@gmail.com>
Date: Aug 9, 2023, 17:42 UTC
Message-ID: <CA+P7+xrGBNO-JNfHvbVUV9AgY_Q8PgYSr5EVycGzC5+ZB7Cv3A@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <20230809170028.GKZNPGLM93GYB+7Ej9@fat_crate.local>

On Wed, Aug 9, 2023 at 10:29 AM Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de> wrote:

Show 28 quoted lines

>
> Hi,
>
> when I do
>
> $ git send-email -v --dry-run --to=me  -1
> /tmp/UdA2hemFfD/v-dry-run-0001-x86-microcode-Include-vendor-headers-into-.patch
> (body) Adding cc: Borislav Petkov (AMD) <bp@alien8.de> from line 'Suggested-by: Borislav Petkov (AMD) <bp@alien8.de>'
>
> From: Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>
> To: Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>
> Subject: [PATCH v--dry-run] x86/microcode: Include vendor headers into microcode.h
> Date: Wed,  9 Aug 2023 18:34:39 +0200
> Message-ID: <20230809163439.26391-1-bp@alien8.de>
> X-Mailer: git-send-email 2.42.0.rc0.25.ga82fb66fed25
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
>
> Send this email? ([y]es|[n]o|[e]dit|[q]uit|[a]ll):
> ---
>
> The -v and --dry-run are glued together and stuck as text after "[PATCH"
> in the subject.
>
> Without -v, it works as expected, see below.
>
> Shouldn't the option parsing error out with "-v is unrecognized option"
> or so?

-v is a valid option to git format-patch:

      -v <n>, --reroll-count=<n>
           Mark the series as the <n>-th iteration of the topic. The
output filenames have v<n> prepended to them, and the subject prefix
("PATCH" by
           default, but configurable via the --subject-prefix option)
has ` v<n>` appended to it. E.g.  --reroll-count=4 may produce
           v4-0001-add-makefile.patch file that has "Subject: [PATCH
v4 1/20] Add makefile" in it.  <n> does not have to be an integer
(e.g.
           "--reroll-count=4.4", or "--reroll-count=4rev2" are
allowed), but the downside of using such a reroll-count is that the
range-diff/interdiff with
           the previous version does not state exactly which version
the new interation is compared against.

it takes a required argument, and inserts "v<argument>" into the [PATCH] block to describe the version.

Typically the argument should be a number, but you happened to provide it "--dry-run". Presumably assuming that the -v means "verbose" as it might in most other applications.

In short: this is working as intended, but it is somewhat confusing that it doesn't validate the argument at all. It is intentional to allow non-numeric strings, but maybe we ought to validate that it doesn't start with -- to avoid such confusion here.

In short: -v doesn't mean verbose, it is a valid option, and while its a bit non-intuitive in this case, I think it is working as designed now.

Thanks, Jake