On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 1:09 PM, Philip Oakley <philipoakley@xxxxxxx> wrote: > From: "Jacob Keller" <jacob.keller@xxxxxxxxx> >> >> On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 11:44 AM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> >> wrote: >>> >>> Jacob Keller <jacob.keller@xxxxxxxxx> writes: >>> >>>> I hadn't thought of separating the cover letter from git-send-email. >>>> That would be suitable for me. >>> >>> >>> Yeah, I said this number of times over time, and I said it once >>> recently in another thread, but I think it was a mistake to allow >>> git-send-email to drive format-patch. It may appear that it will >>> make things convenient in the perfect world where no user makes >>> mistakes, but people are not perfect in real life. Expecting them >>> to be is being naive. >>> >> >> Yep. I didn't even know cover-letter was an option of format-patch >> only thought it was in send-email. >> > Actually, the one feature I'd like (I think) is to be able to join together > the empty commit mechanism and the cover letter mechanism within format > patch so that: > > * the empty commit message would detected and automatically become the [0/N] > in the patch series (without need to say --cover-letter) > > * the cover letter would still have some 'template' markings to say "*** > insert what's changed here***" or smilar (with option to exclude them). > > That way, when starting a series / branch, the first item would be to add > the explanatory 'empty commit' that states the requirements of what one > hopes to achieve (a key cover letter content), which is then followed by > commits that move toward that goal. > > The series can then be rebased as the user develops the code, and that cover > note can be edited as required during the rebase. > > When it comes time to show it to the list, the format patch will *know* from > the empty commit that it is the [0/N] cover letter and (perhaps -option) add > the appropriate markers ready for editing. > > The user edits the cover letter with the extra 'what's changed' / interdiff > / whatever, and sends. sendmail barfs if the user hasn't edited the markers. > > This could also work with the sendmail patch formating (though I've never > used that workflow) as now the cover letter becomes automatic for the > upstream. > > Philip If there was a way to store this empty commit message tagged as "cover letter" that could work well, though generally I prefer the non-fast-forward merges as this shows you where the series ended *and* began. It's somewhat confusing to newer users.. and this doesn't get rebased very well either. Some way to indicate a particular "empty" commit is actually a cover letter seems easy enough. This seems like the way that I was thinking. Using "edit description" of git-branch seems also to be pretty effective for this, even if it doesn't get shared across remotes. (not really a necessary feature for what I do). But having some way to indicate "cover letter" which gets used as the beginning of a log message when doing a particular "merge --tip-as-cover" or something like Junio suggested above seems like the nicest approach. Regards, Jake -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html