Re: [PATCH 3/4] format-patch: new --resend option for adding "RESEND" to patch subjects

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Apr 17, 2024, 15:27 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqq7cgwau1v.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <154b085c-3e92-4eb6-b6a6-97aa02f8f07d@gmail.com>

Phillip Wood <phillip.wood123@gmail.com> writes:

> Playing devil's advocate for a minute, is this really common enough to
> justify a new option when the user can use "--subject-prefix='PATCH
> RESEND'" instead?

The same applies to "--rfc", but the justification goes like this.

 * When you are working on a single subsystem in a larger project,
   your patches would want to carry the subsystem name.  You'd use
   "--subject-prefix='PATCH frotz'" (and more likely it comes from
   format.subjectPrefix in a working repository dedicated to work on
   the frotz subsystem) for that.

 * In the context of working on that subsystem, sometimes you would
   need to mark your patch as a RFC patch, i.e., "[RFC PATCH frotz]",
   and that is done per-invocation basis (i.e., you are not always
   constantly sending an RFC) with "--rfc".

Having orthogonal two mechanisms whose results are concatenated together is handy than having to specify the whole thing.

I somehow thought that during the review of the "--rfc" option a few ideas were brought up to deal with adornments other than but similar to RFC. I still think the approach to make "--rfc" take an optional value, e.g., "--rfc=WIP" from the repository working in "frotz" subsystem would produce "[WIP PATCH frotz v2 2/4]" a reasonable one.

cf.  https://lore.kernel.org/git/xmqqbkepep9k.fsf@gitster.g/

Thanks.