Re: [GSoC][RFC PATCH 0/6] Add --subject-extra-prefix flag to format-patch

From: Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>
Date: Mar 4, 2025, 07:32 UTC
Message-ID: <Z8aspywaD0mAyHwd@pks.im>
In-Reply-To: <xmqq7c55vhj8.fsf@gitster.g>

On Mon, Mar 03, 2025 at 03:08:43PM -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Show 6 quoted lines

> Lucas Seiki Oshiro <lucasseikioshiro@gmail.com> writes:
> 
> > Subject: Re: [GSoC][RFC PATCH 0/6] Add --subject-extra-prefix flag to format-patch
> 
> Hmph, instead use "--rfc=GSoC" to do [GSoC PATCH n/m] and please do
> not pile more "extra" on top?

I do understand though that `--rfc=GSoC` is not exactly discoverable for a newcomer. Maybe a simpler fix would be to introduce an alias for that option that is more discoverable? I don't have a great idea for how to name it -- the best that comes to mind is `--patch-prefix`, which mirrors `--subject-prefix`.

    --patch-prefix=<prefix>
    --rfc
        Prepends the string `<prefix>` to the subject prefix. As the
        subject prefix defaults to "PATCH", you’ll get "<prefix> PATCH"
        by default.

        When `--rfc` is given, the prefix will be set to "RFC" . RFC
        means "Request For Comments"; use this when sending an
        experimental patch for discussion rather than application.
        "--rfc=WIP" may also be a useful way to indicate that a patch is
        not complete yet ("WIP" stands for "Work In Progress").

        If the convention of the receiving community for a particular
        extra string is to have it after the subject prefix, the string
        <prefix> can be prefixed with a dash ("-") to signal that the rest
        of the <prefix> string should be appended to the subject prefix
        instead, e.g., --patch-prefix='-(WIP)' results in "PATCH (WIP)".

We would hide away the optional value `[=<rfc>]` of the `--rfc` option and instead advertise `--patch-prefix=<prefix>`. This would of course only be a cosmetic change, we'd still accept the optional argument so that we don't break backwards compatibility.

Patrick