On Sat, 21 Aug 2010, Ramkumar Ramachandra wrote:
> Ramkumar Ramachandra writes:
> > Jakub Narebski writes:
> > > Works for me:
> > >
> > > 5031:[gitweb/split@git]# git format-patch -3
> > > 0001-gitweb-Prepare-for-splitting-gitweb.txt
> > > 0002-gitweb-Create-Gitweb-Git-module.txt
> > >
> > > 5034:[gitweb/split@git]# git version
> > > git version 1.7.2.1
> > >
> > >
> > > The -3 is git-log option:
> > >
> > > -<n> Limits the number of commits to show.
> > >
> > > and also git-format-patch option:
> > >
> > > -<n> Limits the number of patches to prepare.
> >
> > Hm, doesn't work on the `pu` Git, but works on `master` -- I'm
> > currently bisecting to find the problem. `git log -3` works
> > though.
>
> :facepalm:
>
> Scratch out what I just said -- I just realized that `git format-patch
> HEAD~3` handles merge commits, but `git format-patch -3` does
> not. `git format-patch -3 HEAD~3` is even more confusing- should we
> even advertise the `-<n>` option in format-patch?
It looks like there is a conceptual bug in how git-format-patch works,
namely that '-<n>' is passed to rev-list / log generating machinery,
and it limits number of *commits* to consider; if some of those commits
are merge commits, which cannot be represented as patches, the number
of patches it generates is less than specified <n> (as you can see in
the example I have provided, where <n> == 3, and git-format-patch
generated 2 patches, not 3). In extreme case (like 'pu') it can
generate no patch.
I am not sure what the solution should be. We could either:
A. Update git-format-patch documentation to say 'commits' instead of
'patches', and perhaps also be loud about commits we are skipping,
so that my example would look e.g. like this:
$ git format-patch -3
0001-gitweb-Prepare-for-splitting-gitweb.txt
0002-gitweb-Create-Gitweb-Git-module.txt
Skipping merge commit: Merge branch 'maint'
or
B. Modify git-format-patch so that "git format-patch -<n>" would always
generate <n> patches from specified commits, if there are that many.
But I think that option B.) it might be difficult, so perhaps A.) is
"it".
--
Jakub Narebski
Poland
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