On Thu, Jun 30 2022, Siddharth Asthana wrote: > git cat-file is not a plumbing command anymore, especially as it gained > more and more high level features like its `--batch-command` mode. So > tools do use it to get commit and tag contents that are then displayed > to users. This content which has author, committer or tagger > information, could benefit from passing through the mailmap mechanism, > before being sent or displayed. > > This patch adds --[no-]use-mailmap command line option to the git > cat-file command. It also adds --[no-]mailmap option as an alias to > --[no-]use-mailmap. I think I know the answer, but I think it would be helpful to discuss the underlying motivations too. I.e. an obvious alternative is "why not just get this information out of git show/log then?". The "I think I know the answer" being that I suspect this is to cater to gitaly having persistent "cat-file" processes around, whereas for "git log" it would entail spinning up a new process per-request. But maybe I'm missing something :) So not as a blocker for this change, which I think can be made small enough to be justified in cat-file, but just for context: If "git log" had a similar --batch mode, would there be a need for this change, or is this just adding a common case to "cat-file" to "tide us over" (as it were) while that sort of thing doesn't exist yet (and maybe never will :()?
