Re: [bug (maybe)] Applying patch with '---'

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Apr 1, 2015, 06:20 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqy4mcmkt2.fsf@gitster.dls.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAFOYHZC6Qd9wkoWPcTJDxAs9u=FGpHQTkjE-guhwkya0DRVA6g@mail.gmail.com>

Chris Packham <judge.packham@gmail.com> writes:

Show 12 quoted lines

> So I was just sent a patch generated with 'git format-patch' that 'git
> am' fails to apply correctly. It applies but part of the commit
> message is lost.
>
> The problem is that the commit message has lines like
>
> --- Foo happened
>     did some things to handle Foo
> --- Bar happened
>     Still processing update from Foo which led to a crash
>
> git mailinfo seems to discard everything after the first '--- Blah'.

Yes, this is well known. So is a line that begins with "diff --git" makes mailinfo to guess that it is the end of the log message.

> ... I know git
> mailinfo shouldn't handle garbage input but I guess the problem I have
> is that the patch was generated by git format-patch ...

Whatever message you write format-patch emits without escaping, so "patch was generated by format-patch" does not guarantee anything, unfortunately. A related similar issue is that a line that begins with "From " may be corrupted into a line that begins with ">From " by the time the message hits your mailbox. These are unfortunately something you have to know and long-time users learned to avoid doing so unconsciously ;-).