Re: [PATCH] range-diff: add a --no-patch option to show a summary

From: Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com>
Date: Nov 6, 2018, 05:15 UTC
Message-ID: <CAPig+cR85-7wMYCGGFoRT3jSQzQmda_84Ox1kF6roa5j-1XZ0Q@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqva5aet72.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com>

On Mon, Nov 5, 2018 at 11:17 PM Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:

Show 14 quoted lines

> Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason  <avarab@gmail.com> writes:
> > This change doesn't update git-format-patch with a --no-patch
> > option. That can be added later similar to how format-patch first
> > learned --range-diff, and then --creation-factor in
> > 8631bf1cdd ("format-patch: add --creation-factor tweak for
> > --range-diff", 2018-07-22). I don't see why anyone would want this for
> > format-patch, it pretty much defeats the point of range-diff.
>
> Does it defeats the point of range-diff to omit the patch part in
> the context of the cover letter?  How?
>
> I think the output with this option is a good addition to the cover
> letter as an abbreviated form (as opposed to the full range-diff,
> whose support was added earlier) that gives an overview.

I had the same response when reading the commit message but didn't vocalize it. I could see people wanting to suppress the 'patch' part of the embedded range-diff in a cover letter (though probably not as commentary in a single-patch).

Show 7 quoted lines

> Calling this --[no-]patch might make it harder to integrate it to
> format-patch later, though.  I suspect that people would expect
> "format-patch --no-patch ..." to omit both the patch part of the
> range-diff output *AND* the patch that should be applied to the
> codebase (it of course would defeat the point of format-patch, so
> today's format-patch would not pay attention to --no-patch, of
> course).  We need to be careful not to break that when it happens.

Same concern on my side, which is why I was thinking of other, less confusing, names, such as --summarize or such, though even that is too general against the full set of git-format-patch options. It could, perhaps be a separate option, say, "git format-patch --range-changes=<prev>" or something, which would embed the equivalent of "git range-diff --no-patch <prev>...<current>" in the cover letter.