Re: [RFC 0/1] mailinfo: de-quote quoted-pair in header fields

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Sep 14, 2016, 17:43 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqoa3qqsw9.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <20160914160308.GB26893@ikke.info>

Kevin Daudt <me@ikke.info> writes:

Show 8 quoted lines

> When applied the the author of this patch shows up as:
>
>     Author: A U Thor" (test) <au@thor.com>
>
> So I agree with Jeff[1] where he states that the surrounding quotes
> should be removed, if that's not a problem for git.
>
> [1]:https://public-inbox.org/git/20160914051305.vphknpsikyxi3hg3@sigill.intra.peff.net/

I think we can go either way and it does not matter all that much if "mailinfo" changes its output or the reader of "mailinfo" output changes its input--we will either be munging data read from "From:" when producing the "Author:" line, or taking the "Author:" output by mailinfo and removing the quotes.

As an output from mailinfo that looks like this:

	Author: "A U Thor"
        Email: au@thor.com

is made into a commit object that has this:

	author A U Thor <au@thor.com>

we know that the reader of mailinfo output _already_ has some logic to strip the surrounding double quotes. That is the only reason why I think it is a better approach to not dequote in the "mailinfo" but in the reader to turn

	Author: "A \"U\" Thor"
        Email: au@thor.com

into a commit object that has this:

	author A "U" Thor <au@thor.com>

than updating mailinfo to produce

	Author: A "U" Thor
        Email: au@thor.com

and then create the same result.