Re: storing cover letter of a patch series?

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Sep 10, 2015, 17:41 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqh9n241el.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <CA+P7+xpHDGY5RTR8ntrABdxqM6b4V9dndS68=kV1+1Ym1N6YKw@mail.gmail.com>

Jacob Keller <jacob.keller@gmail.com> writes:

> Is there some other way? Would others be interested in such a feature?

Not me.

> I get very annoyed when I've written a nice long patch cover letter in
> vim before an email and then realize I should fix something else up,
> or accidentally cancel it because I didn't use the write "To:" address
> or something..

I smell a fallout of encouraging a suboptimal workflow made by git-send-email here. If you did not know that the command can drive format-patch itself, your workflow would have been:

    $ git format-patch -o my-topic --cover master..my-topic
    $ vi my-topic/*.txt

and only after you gain confidence with the edited result

    $ git send-email $args my-topic/*.txt

which has no room for your grief/complaint to come into the picture. While rerolling, you can do the same

    $ git format-patch -o my-topic --cover -v2 master..my-topic

and reuse major parts of cover letter from the original round.

> I really think it should be possible to store something somehow as a
> blob that could be looked up later.

I think "should" is too strong here. Yes, you could implement that way. It is debatable if it is better, or a flat file kept in a directory (my-topic/ in the example above) across rerolls is more flexible, lightweight and with less mental burden to the users.