Junio C Hamano wrote:
The -p<num> came from patch where it is also called --strip=num. This new option --root is about the reverse operation and it is about inserting at the beginning --- it is rerooting, in other words, but then --root is good enough and shorter. mkisofs uses the word "graft" when it allows tree shifting (enabled with --graft-points), but the word "graft" means a totally different thing to us, so we would not want to use that word. I am not complaining (--root is fine by me), but just thinking aloud, hoping somebody's brainwave is provoked while reading this babbling and comes up with a better wording ;-).
There is an analogous concept in patch(1), it's just implemented by cd'ing to a subdirectory first. ;)
I think --root makes sense as the root of the patch. The other alternative would be --add (by analogy with --strip); the biggest advantage there is that -a, as a short option, isn't used for anything either by git-am, git-apply, or patch.
Incidentally, has anyone talked to the patch(1) maintainers about adding support for the git extensions, like binary patches? The main reason is that patch(1) is still useful when you have to suffer though fuzzy errors.
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