Re: [FEATURE] Proposal: git format-patch with `--with-line-numbers` flag
- From
Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
- Date
- Aug 18, 2025, 17:02 UTC
- Message-ID
- <xmqqfrdok1g6.fsf@gitster.g>
- In-Reply-To
- <CAGedMtd_atWTAQXOPSJThB_tpHiOSY=PUhrfFxFZOEkgUtHf1w@mail.gmail.com>
Seyi Kuforiji <kuforiji98@gmail.com> writes:
Show 6 quoted lines
> While working on converting unit tests and sending patches, I ran into a > pain point during review. The reviews by Junio, Patrick, and others pointed out > issues in my patches, but without line numbers in the emailed code > context, it was sometimes hard to know exactly which line was being > referenced. I had to manually count through the diff hunks, which slowed > things down.
Count through? I do not usually see a review that talks line numbers (e.g. "your change to line 772 is wrong and should look like this"), so I am not sure which review comment against which patch you had trouble with. Can you give us an example or two? URL into the lore archive would be good.
One things I try in my reviews is, even though I trim my quotes heavily and leave only the part I comment on, I try to leave the filename part (i.e. "diff --git" line) and the hunk header (i.e. "@@ -L,K +M,N @@" line) in. See
https://lore.kernel.org/git/xmqqikla86id.fsf@gitster.g/
for an example.
Show 5 quoted lines
> To address this, I’d like to propose adding an option to `git > format-patch` (e.g., `--with-line-numbers`) that would include line numbers > numbers alongside context lines in the generated patch. This would not > affect patch application (`git am` / `git apply`), but would be a visual > aid for mailing list readers.
"This would not affect" how? If you show something like below, it would break it so badly that the patch would not apply at all, so you may have something else in mind, but I do not know what it would be.
diff --git a/t/t0450-txt-doc-vs-help.sh b/t/t0450-txt-doc-vs-help.sh index 980130be78..e12e18f97f 100755 --- a/t/t0450-txt-doc-vs-help.sh +++ b/t/t0450-txt-doc-vs-help.sh @@ -112,16 +112,19 @@ do 112 adoc="$(builtin_to_adoc "$builtin")" && 113 preq="$(echo BUILTIN_ADOC_$builtin | tr '[:lower:]-' '[:upper:]_')" && 114 115- # if and only if *.adoc is missing, builtin shall be listed in t0450/adoc-missing 116- result=success 117+ # If and only if *.adoc is missing, builtin shall be listed in t0450/adoc-missing. 118 if grep -q "^$builtin$" "$TEST_DIRECTORY"/t0450/adoc-missing 119 then 120+ test_expect_success "$builtin appropriately marked as not having .adoc" ' 121+ ! test -f "$adoc" 122+ ' 123+ else 124 test_set_prereq "$preq" 125- result=failure 126- fi && 127- test_expect_$result "$builtin appropriately marked as having missing .adoc" ' 128- test -f "$adoc" 129- ' 130+ 131+ test_expect_success "$builtin appropriately marked as having .adoc" ' 132+ test -f "$adoc" 133+ ' 134+ fi 135 136 # *.adoc output assertions 137 test_expect_success "$preq" "$builtin *.adoc SYNOPSIS has dashed labels" '