Re: [PATCH] [1/2many] - FInd the maintainer(s) for a patch - scripts/get_maintainer.pl

[Satyam Sharma <satyam@infradead.org>]

Hi Rene,


On Wed, 15 Aug 2007, Rene Herman wrote:

> It mostly is just about that it seems. However, this would not also allow the
> other information currently in the MAINTAINERS file to be queried in similar
> ways.
> 
> Git could grow a generic file meta data implementation through the use of
> tags, sort of like tags on multimedia files although while with multimedia
> files the tags are in fact stored as a file header, here you'd keep them just
> in git. Any project using git would be free to define its own set of info tags
> and you'd supply them to git simply as a list of
> 
> <tag>=<value>
> 
> pairs:
> 
> $ git info --add drivers/ide/ide-cd.c <<EOF
> CC="Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>", linux-ide@vger.kernel.org
> EOF
> 
> Or as a more expansive example, with the tags set on a directory (and the
> output shown this time):
> 
> $ git info drivers/infiniband/
> CC="Roland Dreier <rolandd@cisco.com>"
> CC="Sean Hefty <mshefty@ichips.intel.com>"
> CC="Hal Rosenstock <halr@voltaire.com>"
> CC=openib-general@openib.org

Considering some people may want to differentiate between "those who want
to be Cc'ed for patches on subsystem X" and "those who are maintainer(s)
of subsystem X", I think another "P=" kind of tag might also be useful
here.

> W=http://www.openib.org/
> T=git kernel.org:/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/roland/infiniband.git
> 
> $ git info --type="W" drivers/infiniband/
> http://www.openib.org/
> 
> The project can link the actual tags such as CC, W and T to --options for the
> "info" command in the git configuration file for the tree (and/or just define
> a few upfront I guess) making it look nicer:
> 
> $ git info --cc drivers/infiniband/
> "Roland Dreier <rolandd@cisco.com>"
> "Sean Hefty <mshefty@ichips.intel.com>"
> "Hal Rosenstock <halr@voltaire.com>"
> openib-general@openib.org
> 
> $ git info --website drivers/infiniband/
> http://www.openib.org/
> 
> $ git info --tree drivers/infiniband/
> git kernel.org:/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/roland/infiniband.git
> 
> Extra: when you have such an implementation, you can use it for other purposes
> as well such as the summary Documentation/ files want for the 00-INDEX files:
> 
> $ git info --summary Documentation/BUG-HUNTING
> brute force method of doing binary search of patches to find bug.
> 
> And importantly -- when queuried for a file that itself doesn't have the
> requested info tag:
> 
> $ git info --cc drivers/infiniband/core/addr.c
> 
> git looks for the tag on the drivers/infiniband/core/ directory next, and then
> on drivers/infiniband/, where it finds it. linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org would
> be the final fallback, being set on the project root.
> 
> I'd really like something like this. As long as projects are both free to use
> and not use them and free to define their own set of tags I believe this would
> work very nicely.
> 
> Once you have these tags, you can basically use them for anything.

I'd really _love_ a tool that does all that what you've proposed above!

But why does it have to be "git-info" or anything in the git(7) suite for
that matter? This sounds like a job for a different specialised tool,
along with ".metatags" kind of files dispersed in the source tree.


Satyam