Re: [RFC/PATCH] log: add log.firstparent option

[Jeff King <peff@peff.net>]

On Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 12:46:57AM -0700, Jacob Keller wrote:

> On Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 12:40 AM, Jeff King <peff@peff.net> wrote:
> > Whoops. Usually I "format-patch -s" and then add any notes while
> > sending. But the wifi at OSCON was so abysmal that instead I wrote the
> > notes directly into the commit message to send the whole thing later.
> > And of course format-patch is not smart enough to know that I meant
> > everything after the "---" as notes. :)
> 
> Kind of a side track but...
> 
> I think it's up to the caller of git-am to use "--scissors" to cut the
> log? But maybe we could add an option to git-format patch which
> formats and cuts via scissors as it generates the message? Not sure
> the best way to interpret this, but I know I've had trouble where I
> wrote some notes into an email and lost it because I killed the email
> for some other edit. Keeping them inside my local commits before
> sending out email would be handy.. hmmmm

The "---" is orthogonal to "--scissors". With "--scissors", the full
format of the body is:

   some notes or cover letter

   -- >8 --
   the actual commit message

   ---
   more notes

   diff --git ...etc...

So here I was trying to use the "---" to add notes at the end (not
because --scissors is not used consistently, but because I wanted the
reader to see them after reading the commit message). So you could keep
notes in the commit message by writing:

  my notes here

  -- >8 --
  the real commit message

and then "format-patch -s" just works, because it is munging the end.
But if you want to be able to add commit notes at the end, you need
format-patch to realize that any trailers should go before the "---"
(i.e., to realize that the "---" is syntactically significant, and not
just part of your message).

Another option would be to teach git-commit to split the "---" from the
commit message itself, and put the bits after it into git-notes (and
then format-patch already knows how to handle that). I had a patch
series to do that long ago, but I found that I never used it (I usually
_do_ type my notes in the mailer as I'm sending), so I never seriously
pushed for inclusion. I might be able to dig it out of the archive if
you're interested.

-Peff