Re: [PATCH] Allow format-patch to create patches for merges

From: Nathan W. Panike <nathan.panike@gmail.com>
Date: Jan 26, 2009, 16:27 UTC
Message-ID: <d77df1110901260827j2200fe41oe1b84c387d88aba@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.1.00.0901261604420.25749@intel-tinevez-2-302>

On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 9:36 AM, Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> wrote:

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> Hi,
>
> On Mon, 26 Jan 2009, Nathan W. Panike wrote:
>
>> The behavior for git format-patch is to ignore merge commits, producing
>> an empty patch.  The code does not allow the user to change this
>> behavior. This patch changes that behavior by allowing the user to
>> specify -c or -m at the command line to produce a patch for a merge
>> commit.
>
> Your patch is almost perfect, except that you
>
> - lack an explanation when this makes sense (format-patch is commonly used
>  for mail-based patch queues, and only -m 1 would make sense there, and
>  only if you run format-patch with --first-parent),
>

I think I have an unusual workflow where my patch makes sense, although it probably does not for the vast majority of git users. I regularly use 3 machines: S, L, and H. I keep my work synchronized by using git. Normally, I fetch from S to L or to H, depending on which machine I am working on at the moment. I also push from L or H to S. I sporadically lose connectivity to S, so I have a hook in the repo on S to send a backup email to me on mail server M, which has a more reliable connection. This email also serves as a reminder when I have moved from one machine to another with a degree of latency; and I can use the mail queue on M to recreate most of my state, if I cannot fetch from S. In this workflow, I would really like git to create a patch, even in the merge case, and I think I want to see that it was a merge.

What I do not want to see is an empty patch when a non-trivial change has occurred, which is the way it works now.

Also, I think I must be issuing the wrong command, as when I do

git format-patch --first-parent --stdout -1 $merge_commit

there is no data, with or without my patch.

> - did not add your Sign-off :-)

Oops.  Thanks for the catch.

Show 5 quoted lines

>
> Ciao,
> Dscho
>
>