Florian Weimer <fw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > git mailinfo splits a message into headers, commit message, and patch > text, but does not actually parse the patch text. As a result, the > patch portion produced by git mailinfo can contain something that > looks like a patch, but actually isn't. Yes, mailinfo is about splitting the header, log message and the remainder, and parsing the remainder to use it as a patch text is left to the consumer of the "patch" file it produces. > Is there a way to get the patch data, as parsed by git apply or git > am, and dump it back in patch format, without actually applying the > patch to a working tree? So, "the patch data as used by apply" is what you get from mailinfo. If it is a patch that applies to what you have in the working tree and/or the index is something you can/must ask "git apply". IOW, when "git mailinfo" stored in $GIT_DIR/rebase-apply/patch the "remainder" of the message, you could git apply --check [--index] $GIT_DIR/rebase-apply/patch to see if it is an OK patch. If it is, then there is no need to further "dump it back in patch format"; what you just fed to "apply --check" is already in the patch format.
