Re: RFC: using supersedes: trailer to indicate patch/series revision flow

[Eric Wong <e@80x24.org>]

Konstantin Ryabitsev <konstantin@linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> Hi, all:
> 
> The only mechanism we currently have for patch/series versioning is
> subject suffixes. I think it would be useful to have a way to more
> explicitly mark that a series obsoletes a previous version, and I
> propose this is done with a `supersedes:` trailer at the end of the
> cover letter or in the first patch of the series:

<snip>

> Subject: [PATCH,v2] Change foo
> 
> Foo is no good. Use Bar. Also use baz.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Dev Eloper <dev.eloper@example.com>
> ---
>   foo | 3 ++-
>   1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
> 
> diff --git a/foo b/foo
> ...
> 
> supersedes: <1572991351-86061-1-git-send-email-dev.eloper@example.com>

This would works badly with limited bandwidth and storage
situations.

--interdiff and --range-diff options already give plenty of
useful info inline; and --range-diff can be enhanced to work
better in scenarios where there's enough storage/bandwidth for a
powerful search engine (--interdiff already does):

  Here's a quick PoC which allows --range-diff to be more useful
  to searcn engines (but the current regression is it's too
  noisy for human eyes, and making it less so requires more work):
  https://public-inbox.org/git/20191017121045.GA15364@dcvr/
  ("range-diff: show old/new blob OIDs in comments")

And search engine tooling still needs to be built around search
for better interdiff and range-diff blob expansion (since it
already exists for regular patches).