threads / discuss / 15295

Ambiguous -from of git-send-email

Subject: Ambiguous -from of git-send-email

## tl;dr

5 messages between Aug 31, 2008 and Sep 2, 2008.

replies: 4people: 3as markdown or json

Sheng Yang· Aug 31, 2008, 05:57 UTC · lore

Hi, all

A trivial problem here, but I think it can be handled more clearly.

Recently when I begin to use git-send-email with my private email account, I found it didn't work as I expected. The problem is "From" of the patch. I have to specify my company email in the "From" which meant the author, but when I go with default value of git-send-email, I found it omit the additional "From" of patch in the mailbody.

For example, I specified "my@company.com" in patch's "From: " when used git-format-patch to generate it. And I use "my@home.com" to send the mail. But if I go with default setting of git-send-email, it said the mail would be sent as "from my@company.com"(of course it can't). At last, the sent mail only got "From my@home.com" in mail header, and "From my@company.com" was omitted.

I've checked the git-send-email code, and found what's the real meaning of "-from" specify in git-send-email is the email account(sender) rather than the author. And if the sender is the same as the author, the first line of patch "From: xxx" was omitted. But at least on my machine, the from specified in the mail would be overwritten by MTA/ISP(well, I am not sure which of them did this), so what's the content of "-from" is not important, but if "-from" is the same as "From" in the patch, the "From" line in the patch is omitted, otherwise the line is kept.

Yeah, it's reasonable. But I think it's not that clear. "-from" of git-send-email indicated the sender and "From" indicated the author is very ambiguous. Maybe use "-sender" here in parameter is more reasonable? And do we need some notes in manual?

And can we add a something like "sendemail.sender" to specify the sender? I think it's not that unusual to make author's email address is different from sender, at least I think it's more common than "sendmail.bcc".

If you agree, I'd like to offer a patch for "sendemail.sender"(maybe also give some note in manual for "-from").

Thanks!

-- regards Yang, Sheng

Ask Bjørn Hansen· Aug 31, 2008, 19:37 UTC · re: Sheng Yang · lore

Re: Ambiguous -from of git-send-email

On Aug 30, 2008, at 22:57, Sheng Yang wrote:

Show 5 quoted lines

> And can we add a something like "sendemail.sender" to specify the
> sender? I think it's not that unusual to make author's email address  
> is
> different from sender, at least I think it's more common than
> "sendmail.bcc".

Try the sendemail.envelopesender option. I'll make a patch for adding that to the documentation.

  - ask

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Ask Bjørn Hansen· Aug 31, 2008, 20:32 UTC · re: Ask Bjørn Hansen · lore

[PATCH] Document sendemail.envelopesender configuration

Signed-off-by: Ask Bjørn Hansen <ask@develooper.com>
---
 Documentation/git-send-email.txt |    3 +++
 1 files changed, 3 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/git-send-email.txt b/Documentation/git-send-email.txt
index e2437f3..e3f82da 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-send-email.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-send-email.txt
@@ -179,6 +179,9 @@ user is prompted for a password while the input is masked for privacy.
 	This is useful if your default address is not the address that is
 	subscribed to a list. If you use the sendmail binary, you must have
 	suitable privileges for the -f parameter.
+	Default is the value of the 'sendemail.envelopesender' configuration
+ 	value; if that is unspecified, choosing the envelope sender is left
+	to your MTA.
 
 --to::
 	Specify the primary recipient of the emails generated.

-- 
1.6.0.1.158.ga28da.dirty

Jakub Narebski· Aug 31, 2008, 21:01 UTC · re: Ask Bjørn Hansen · lore

Re: [PATCH] Document sendemail.envelopesender configuration

Ask Bj?rn Hansen wrote:

> +       Default is the value of the 'sendemail.envelopesender' configuration
> +       value; if that is unspecified, choosing the envelope sender is left

s/configuration value/configuration variable/

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Warsaw, Poland
ShadeHawk on #git

Ask Bjørn Hansen· Sep 2, 2008, 02:51 UTC · re: Jakub Narebski · lore

Re: [PATCH] Document sendemail.envelopesender configuration

On Aug 31, 2008, at 14:01, Jakub Narebski wrote:

Show 6 quoted lines

>> +       Default is the value of the 'sendemail.envelopesender'  
>> configuration
>> +       value; if that is unspecified, choosing the envelope sender  
>> is left
>
> s/configuration value/configuration variable/

Hi Jakub,

I thought so too, but used value for internal consistency with (most of) the rest of that documentation file.

- ask

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