# Awkward and confusing question in git --send-email

2 messages from 2016-04-23 to 2016-04-24. Participants: John Darrington, Junio C Hamano.
Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/42122

## John Darrington, 2016-04-23 18:22

Subject: Awkward and confusing question in git --send-email
Message-ID: <20160423182235.GA20615@jocasta.intra>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20160423182235.GA20615%40jocasta.intra

```
Git --send-email poses the question:

 "Who should the emails be sent to (if any)?"

Apart from sounding clumsy (not to mention incorrect grammar), it took me a while to work out what this meant.

I suggest this be changed to :

"To whom should the email be sent (if anyone) ?"

J'

-- 
Avoid eavesdropping.  Send strong encryted email.
PGP Public key ID: 1024D/2DE827B3 
fingerprint = 8797 A26D 0854 2EAB 0285  A290 8A67 719C 2DE8 27B3
See http://sks-keyservers.net or any PGP keyserver for public key.


```

## Junio C Hamano, 2016-04-24 19:31

Subject: Re: Awkward and confusing question in git --send-email
Message-ID: <xmqqlh42n6qn.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/xmqqlh42n6qn.fsf%40gitster.mtv.corp.google.com
In-Reply-To: <20160423182235.GA20615@jocasta.intra>

```
John Darrington <john@darrington.wattle.id.au> writes:

> Git --send-email poses the question:
>
>  "Who should the emails be sent to (if any)?"
>
> Apart from sounding clumsy (not to mention incorrect grammar), it took me a while to work out what this meant.
>
> I suggest this be changed to :
>
> "To whom should the email be sent (if anyone) ?"

Sounds good.

-- >8 --
Subject: send-email: fix grammo in the prompt that asks e-mail recipients

The message, which dates back to the very original version 83b24437
made in 2005, sounds clumsy, grammatically incorrect, and is hard to
understand.

Reported-by: John Darrington <john@darrington.wattle.id.au>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
---
 git-send-email.perl | 5 +++--
 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/git-send-email.perl b/git-send-email.perl
index c45b22a..1ef94f6 100755
--- a/git-send-email.perl
+++ b/git-send-email.perl
@@ -827,9 +827,10 @@ sub file_declares_8bit_cte {
 # But it's a no-op to run sanitize_address on an already sanitized address.
 $sender = sanitize_address($sender);
 
+my $to_whom = "To whom should the emails be sent (if anyone)?";
 my $prompting = 0;
 if (!@initial_to && !defined $to_cmd) {
-	my $to = ask("Who should the emails be sent to (if any)? ",
+	my $to = ask("$to_whom ",
 		     default => "",
 		     valid_re => qr/\@.*\./, confirm_only => 1);
 	push @initial_to, parse_address_line($to) if defined $to; # sanitized/validated later
@@ -924,7 +925,7 @@ sub validate_address {
 			cleanup_compose_files();
 			exit(0);
 		}
-		$address = ask("Who should the email be sent to (if any)? ",
+		$address = ask("$to_whom ",
 			default => "",
 			valid_re => qr/\@.*\./, confirm_only => 1);
 	}

```