git-am vs. git-applymbox

git-am vs. git-applymbox

[Jakub Narebski]

git-applymbox - Apply a series of patches in a mailbox
git-am        - Apply a series of patches in a mailbox

What are the differences between thos two commands, UI-wise and capability
(feature) wise? Which one should I use? Which one do _you_ use?


And why git has yet another set of commands which do the same (well,
git-annotate vs. git-blame "war" was won by git-blame, and git-pickaxe was
born).

By the way, could we standarize somewhat short options for git commands,
like -q for quiet, -v for verbose, -i for interactive, -S for pickaxe
(search in diff), -n for some kind of no-op/do nothing (e.g. --no-commit),
-f for force, -l for list, -k for skip errors/keep working even in the case
of errors? It would be nice to have this in Documentation/API somewhere...
-- 
Jakub Narebski
Warsaw, Poland
ShadeHawk on #git

Re: git-am vs. git-applymbox

[linux]

> git-applymbox - Apply a series of patches in a mailbox
> git-am        - Apply a series of patches in a mailbox
> 
> What are the differences between thos two commands, UI-wise and capability
> (feature) wise? Which one should I use? Which one do _you_ use?

git-applymbox was one of the first git porcelain scripts ever written,
by Linus.  (In fact, it's original name of "dotest" is visible in some
of the temp files.)  It has its rough edges, but Linus is used to it,
so it is retained for his convenience.

git-am is a rewrite with a nicer (but different) command line.  If you
are starting, it's the one you should learn and use.

In particular, git-am has options like "--resolved" and "--skip" 
for resuming from an interrupted patch series.  Restarting
git-applymbox requires a detailed knowledge of its workings.