Re: [PATCH v2 2/2] format-patch: warn if commit msg contains a patch delimiter

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Sep 9, 2022, 16:47 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqwnaclck0.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <CAHd-oW4Z-UbFWy=fj=L-CqiG9QP0x3ZLRg0icgK5Xgu=THd4Lw@mail.gmail.com>

Matheus Tavares <matheus.bernardino@usp.br> writes:

> Makes sense. Perhaps under a config option? The difficult part would
> be for the scissors; just indenting it with whitespaces wouldn't
> suffice, right?

It may be difficult not because of any mechanical reasons, but because we cannot guess WHY the author wrote it there in the log in the first place. It could be that the author writes explanatory text that is not to become part of the permanent history at the beginning, place scissors, and follow that with log for posterity, EXPECTING that all of them is output by format-patch and transmit to the receiving end without modified.

Another thing is a three-dash marker line in the log message. I myself did use them to leave a note for myself (which should be left outside the official history when it is sent to the list and then applied), and I would have been upset if it was stripped or the tool even warned against it---I knew what I was doing after all.

Compared to these two, an unindented "diff " and its output in the log has no reason to be pre-recoded in the commit message and make the rest of the message a part of the patch, so I am perfectly fine if we unconditionally "escaped" them. But I personally think scissors and three-dash lines should be left intact.