Re: [RFC] send-email: UTF-8 encoding in subject line

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Feb 21, 2026, 17:30 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqldgmrom9.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <20260221140049.579922-1-shreyanshpaliwalcmsmn@gmail.com>

Shreyansh Paliwal <shreyanshpaliwalcmsmn@gmail.com> writes:

>> Yeah, that was a bit confusing for me until I got used to it. Maybe
>> saying “[default: UTF-8]” would be a small and definite improvement?

The current message can be mistaken, if the reader does not READ, if it is asking a yes/no question, but with the "default" label, you cannot imagine answering "yes", which is clearly not one of the things in the same class as "UTF-8" that is given as the default, which also serves as an example.

This is indeed a clever hack (not hack on computer code but hack on the mind of human who is reading the message).

> That makes sense, I tried it below.
> I also wondered whether, in addition to this, it might be helpful to warn on
> an invalid charset, and/or possibly fall back to UTF-8.

Agreed on the first half of the statement, if we have an easy and portable way to tell if a given random string names a valid charset. I do not recommend to "fall back" to anything, if we are asking an input from the user.

Thanks.