git notes question

Hi all,

Sorry if this is something already asked before...

Is there any way to remove the default "Notes:" line on git-notes? I don't really mind to have it in git log but when generating patches for instance, I would like my notes to be something like:

commit title

message

tags... ---

v3:
  notes on v3

v2:
  notes on v2

instead of having it like:

... ---

Notes:
    ...

I did some code inspection and I guess that using a USER format would be a way but I'm hopping there's a more direct way.

Thanks!
- Nuno Sá

Hi Nuno!

Just to be clear, in relation to which command are we talking about?

For git-format-patch there's --notes which I assume doesn't support customization.

For git-log it's possible to customize how notes appear in git-log
using the standard way of formatting log messages, pretty format.
%N
is for the commit notes
https://git-scm.com/docs/pretty-formats#Documentation/pretty-formats.txt-emNem
For example
  git log --pretty=format:%h%n%N
displays each short hash and it's corresponding note.

It's also possible to use it when generating todos for git-rebase, however, they are written with a prepended new-line which breaks the todo script :/

Hi Erik,

On Wed, 2022-03-09 at 09:54 +0100, Erik Cervin Edin wrote:

Well, this is the one I would like (hoped) that we could do something about. When I do '--notes' in git-format-patch, I will always see:

``` (Typical git commit) ...

---
(I just wanted "Notes:" to be removed and my notes to start at the
beginning of the line).
Notes: 
	(my notes go here)
...

AFAICT, git-format-patch looks to be using --pretty=email and I think we can use --pretty in git-format-patch but having to mimic the email format "by hand" is just painful and I was hoping a better way could exist.

```

I'm aware of this and by briefly looking into the source code this seemed the only way to actually remove those predefined strings from notes (I was just hoping I was wrong).

Thanks for the feedback!
- Nuno Sá

Nuno Sá <noname.nuno@gmail.com> writes:

Well, this time it was "Notes:" label, but the next person who wants to see a deviation from the canned "email" format would want a deviation different from yours. Perhaps they want a different way to format the author name? Perhaps they want a different way to separate the title (to be on the "Subject:" line) out of the commit message? Perhaps they want to see the log message be indented? Perhaps they want to see the message from the notes be line-wrapped? Perhaps they want to see the message from the notes not to be indented? Perhaps they want to see the "Notes (amlog):" label to format the name of the notes tree differently?

Where would that end?  We have to draw the line somewhere.

The customizability via --format=<template> is given for these people who want to futz with that line. One thing that may be a good little project to help them is to make sure that the vanilla "--pretty=email" can be reimplemented as "--format=<template>" (I doubt it is), design a way to fill the gaps (if there are) to get there. Once that is done, write down the "--format=<template>" that is equivalent to "--pretty=email" somewhere in the doc, to give those who want to derive from the canned format some reasonable starting point.

On Wed, 2022-03-09 at 10:02 -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote:

I'm surely missing something but I'm not sure this is specific to the email format? It's just that git-notes by default will always either append the "Notes:" or "Notes (<refname>):" independent of the predefined format you use. The only way to stop it from doing that is, apparently, by using your own --format=<template>...

What I was asking was just if there was a way to not use these default strings. I don't think this would open all kind of deviations... Either you use these default strings or don't. But I think these strings are probably used/important for git log? So we can know what is commit message and what are notes...

Well, this would be surely nice. For now, I will just remove it by hand or script something to do it before calling git-send-email.

Thanks for the feedback!
- Nuno Sá

Forgive me but I'm somewhat perplexed as to why you want to change it. Is there a specific use-case where this is a problem or is it a personal preference? Maybe you have a good reason and my imagination isn't stretching that far.

Here's a simples sed that changes Notes: to setoN:
  sed '/^---$/{N;N;/^---\n\nNotes:$/s@Notes:@setoN:@}'

On Thu, 2022-03-10 at 14:11 +0100, Erik Cervin Edin wrote:

I think there are some misunderstanding here :). I'm not requesting to change it. I was just asking if there was a way (already implemented and other than custom --format to get rid of it). And yes, this boils down to personal preference and on how git-notes are typically written in linux kernel mailing lists in patch series. I was actually writing them by hand when I realized I could use git-notes and create patches with them (and that these notes could "survive" to rebases so that it would be easier to have them placed across versions of the series).

- Nuno Sá

Nuno Sá <noname.nuno@gmail.com> writes:

Not limited to the email format. "git log" will always prefix "Author: " before the commit author name, "Date: " date with extra paddingbefore the author, indents the log message by 4 spaces, adds "Notes (refname):" before notes, and indentation is given before the contents of the notes. There are many things, other than the presence of the "Notes" label, that people may want to customize in the output from the commands in the "git log" family, including "git format-patch".

I think you were too focused on "Notes" tree to lose the view of the forest. A line is drawn not to special case "Notes" prefix, because there is no reason to do so without allowing all other things to also be tweaked, and it will "open all kind of deviations".

On Thu, 2022-03-10 at 09:52 -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Alright... Now I got it. There's already lot of things that 'git log' and friends print by default that there's no reason to give special treatment to "Notes:". That would indeed open the box for all kind of request.

Having a way to mimic email (or others) template in --format would indeed be nice though :).

- Nuno Sá