threads / discuss / 39896

How to use --cc-cmd in git-send-email?

Subject: How to use --cc-cmd in git-send-email?

## tl;dr

6 messages between Jul 19, 2015 and Jul 20, 2015.

replies: 5people: 2as markdown or json

Philip Oakley· Jul 19, 2015, 22:02 UTC · lore

I've been using git-send-email with repeated individual --cc="email address" parameters on the command line.

I tried putting all the addresses, one per line, into a file 'cc-cmd', so I could use if for the --cc-cmd option.

I then tried to use --cc-cmd='cat cc-cmd' to do the send-email (as a --dry-run). This produced, as part of the output, a list of the output of the cc-cmd, which showed not only the file contents, but this was then followed by the full patch, as if it was part of the list of email addresses.

Finally, at the end of the inclusion of the patch, I got

(cc-cmd) Adding cc: -- from: 'cat cc-cmd' (cc-cmd) Adding cc: 2.4.2.windows.1.5.gd32afb6 from: 'cat cc-cmd' (cc-cmd) Adding cc: from: 'cat cc-cmd' error: unable to extract a valid address from: What to do with this address? ([q]uit|[d]rop|[e]dit):

Could this have been caused by an extra (blank) line at the end of the cc-cmd file?

Also, does anyone have an example of a working --cc-cmd option?
(this is on g4w: git version 2.3.1)
Philip
Eric Sunshine· Jul 20, 2015, 01:09 UTC · re: Philip Oakley · lore

Re: How to use --cc-cmd in git-send-email?

On Sun, Jul 19, 2015 at 6:02 PM, Philip Oakley <philipoakley@iee.org> wrote:
Show 11 quoted lines
> I've been using git-send-email with repeated individual --cc="email address"
> parameters on the command line.
>
> I tried putting all the addresses, one per line, into a file 'cc-cmd', so I
> could use if for the --cc-cmd option.
>
> I then tried to use --cc-cmd='cat cc-cmd' to do the send-email (as a
> --dry-run). This produced, as part of the output, a list of the output of
> the cc-cmd, which showed not only the file contents, but this was then
> followed by the full patch, as if it was part of the list of email
> addresses.
git-send-email invokes the cc-cmd like this:
    $cc-cmd $patchfilename
so, when you used 'cat cc-cmd' as the value of --cc-cmd, your invocation became:
    cat cc-cmd $patchfilename

and since 'cat' copies the concatenation of its input files to its output, that explains why you first saw the names from your 'cc-cmd' file followed by the content of the patch file.

A quick-and-dirty work-around is to use '#' to effectively comment out the patch file name:

    --cc-cmd='cat cc-cmd #'
which works, but is very, very ugly.
> Could this have been caused by an extra (blank) line at the end of the
> cc-cmd file?
Nope.
> Also, does anyone have an example of a working --cc-cmd option?
A very simple working solution is to make your 'cc-cmd' file executable:
    #!/bin/sh
    echo <<\EOF
    person1@example.com
    person2@example.com
    EOF
Philip Oakley· Jul 20, 2015, 06:01 UTC · re: Eric Sunshine · lore

Re: How to use --cc-cmd in git-send-email?

From: "Eric Sunshine" <sunshine@sunshineco.com>
Show 30 quoted lines
> On Sun, Jul 19, 2015 at 6:02 PM, Philip Oakley <philipoakley@iee.org> 
> wrote:
>> I've been using git-send-email with repeated individual --cc="email 
>> address"
>> parameters on the command line.
>>
>> I tried putting all the addresses, one per line, into a file 
>> 'cc-cmd', so I
>> could use if for the --cc-cmd option.
>>
>> I then tried to use --cc-cmd='cat cc-cmd' to do the send-email (as a
>> --dry-run). This produced, as part of the output, a list of the 
>> output of
>> the cc-cmd, which showed not only the file contents, but this was 
>> then
>> followed by the full patch, as if it was part of the list of email
>> addresses.
>
> git-send-email invokes the cc-cmd like this:
>
>    $cc-cmd $patchfilename
>
> so, when you used 'cat cc-cmd' as the value of --cc-cmd, your 
> invocation became:
>
>    cat cc-cmd $patchfilename
>
> and since 'cat' copies the concatenation of its input files to its
> output, that explains why you first saw the names from your 'cc-cmd'
> file followed by the content of the patch file.
Many thanks, that seems to explain everything!

I'd tried to understand the code but I missed the nuances with my limited experience of perl coding.

Show 7 quoted lines
>
> A quick-and-dirty work-around is to use '#' to effectively comment out
> the patch file name:
>
>    --cc-cmd='cat cc-cmd #'
>
> which works, but is very, very ugly.
But nicely quick and dirty ;-)
Show 17 quoted lines
>
>> Could this have been caused by an extra (blank) line at the end of 
>> the
>> cc-cmd file?
>
> Nope.
>
>> Also, does anyone have an example of a working --cc-cmd option?
>
> A very simple working solution is to make your 'cc-cmd' file 
> executable:
>
>    #!/bin/sh
>    echo <<\EOF
>    person1@example.com
>    person2@example.com
>    EOF

I may try and do a small doc patch for the git-send-email.txt man page (I have a few doc fixes backing up waiting to be done ;-)

-- Philip

Eric Sunshine· Jul 20, 2015, 06:06 UTC · re: Philip Oakley · lore

Re: How to use --cc-cmd in git-send-email?

On Mon, Jul 20, 2015 at 2:01 AM, Philip Oakley <philipoakley@iee.org> wrote:
Show 18 quoted lines
> From: "Eric Sunshine" <sunshine@sunshineco.com>
>> git-send-email invokes the cc-cmd like this:
>>
>>    $cc-cmd $patchfilename
>>
>> so, when you used 'cat cc-cmd' as the value of --cc-cmd, your invocation
>> became:
>>
>>    cat cc-cmd $patchfilename
>>
>> and since 'cat' copies the concatenation of its input files to its
>> output, that explains why you first saw the names from your 'cc-cmd'
>> file followed by the content of the patch file.
>
> Many thanks, that seems to explain everything!
>
> I may try and do a small doc patch for the git-send-email.txt man page (I
> have a few doc fixes backing up waiting to be done ;-)

That would be welcome. I don't think it's mentioned at all in git-send-email.txt that the --to-cmd/--cc-cmd commands are handed the patch pathname as an argument, so that's certainly something worth documenting.

Philip Oakley· Jul 20, 2015, 14:20 UTC · re: Eric Sunshine · lore

Re: How to use --cc-cmd in git-send-email?

From: "Eric Sunshine" <sunshine@sunshineco.com>
Show 28 quoted lines
> On Mon, Jul 20, 2015 at 2:01 AM, Philip Oakley <philipoakley@iee.org> 
> wrote:
>> From: "Eric Sunshine" <sunshine@sunshineco.com>
>>> git-send-email invokes the cc-cmd like this:
>>>
>>>    $cc-cmd $patchfilename
>>>
>>> so, when you used 'cat cc-cmd' as the value of --cc-cmd, your 
>>> invocation
>>> became:
>>>
>>>    cat cc-cmd $patchfilename
>>>
>>> and since 'cat' copies the concatenation of its input files to its
>>> output, that explains why you first saw the names from your 'cc-cmd'
>>> file followed by the content of the patch file.
>>
>> Many thanks, that seems to explain everything!
>>
>> I may try and do a small doc patch for the git-send-email.txt man 
>> page (I
>> have a few doc fixes backing up waiting to be done ;-)
>
> That would be welcome. I don't think it's mentioned at all in
> git-send-email.txt that the --to-cmd/--cc-cmd commands are handed the
> patch pathname as an argument, so that's certainly something worth
> documenting.
> --
The other issue I noted was wondering what "auto-cc" is?
It's only mentioned the once in:
    --suppress-cc=<category>
Specify an additional category of recipients to suppress the auto-cc of:

Is it a sort of double negative? Certainly I had no idea what an auto-cc was ;-)

Philip
Eric Sunshine· Jul 20, 2015, 18:07 UTC · re: Philip Oakley · lore

Re: How to use --cc-cmd in git-send-email?

On Mon, Jul 20, 2015 at 10:20 AM, Philip Oakley <philipoakley@iee.org> wrote:
Show 20 quoted lines
> From: "Eric Sunshine" <sunshine@sunshineco.com>
>> On Mon, Jul 20, 2015 at 2:01 AM, Philip Oakley <philipoakley@iee.org>
>> wrote:
>>> I may try and do a small doc patch for the git-send-email.txt man page (I
>>> have a few doc fixes backing up waiting to be done ;-)
>>
>> That would be welcome. I don't think it's mentioned at all in
>> git-send-email.txt that the --to-cmd/--cc-cmd commands are handed the
>> patch pathname as an argument, so that's certainly something worth
>> documenting.
>
> The other issue I noted was wondering what "auto-cc" is?
>
> It's only mentioned the once in:
>    --suppress-cc=<category>
>
> Specify an additional category of recipients to suppress the auto-cc of:
>
> Is it a sort of double negative? Certainly I had no idea what an auto-cc was
> ;-)

I presume that "auto-cc" refers to git-send-email's behavior of figuring out whom to cc: automatically (by gleaning email addresses from various sources, such as the patch itself, cc-cmd, etc.). Even just saying "...suppress the automatic cc:'ing..." would be an improvement, though it may deserve its own little paragraph explaining that automatic cc:'ing is occurring and from where the email addresses are gleaned.

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