Re: bug/defaults: COMMIT_EDITMSG not reused after a failed commit

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jul 24, 2024, 16:37 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqq1q3iyceq.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <CAFLLRpJgpjJpNRC_UpZmUXF2626e0BiH8CkOkoMrX3zcrOp7YA@mail.gmail.com>

Robert Coup <robert.coup@koordinates.com> writes:

Show 7 quoted lines

> 1. delete COMMIT_EDITMSG on success
>
> 2. reopen COMMIT_EDITMSG on commit if it exists. Maybe logging something like
>    "Restoring previous in-progress commit message..." might explain what's
>    happening.
> 3. if COMMIT_EDITMSG doesn't exist, re-populate from the template before opening
>    the editor. We could also do this for "parsed-as-empty" commit messages.

Unconditionally doing this change would be disruptive to workflows of existing users. To them, Git left COMMIT_EDITMSG available even after the commit to them almost forever, but suddenly it stops doing so. Like "git cherry-pick|rebase|revert" that got stopped can be restarted _with_ some state information with "--continue", offering this as an optional feature might be a possibility, but I haven't thought things through.

An obvious and a lot more lightweight first step is to make it clear (perhaps in the error message after a failed commit---after all, such a failure from "git commit" should be a rare event) where you can resurrect the draft commit message from. That is independent and orthogonal to the "let's reuse COMMIT_EDITMSG file" change.

A similar issue was reported a few years ago but without any response or action.

https://lore.kernel.org/git/CAJ2_uEOk8xoLvK8B8PYc0_=kA8W_LqKwGyhKghemQDdRzA2nFA@mail.gmail.com/

Let's see if we find somebody interested in it this time.

Thanks.