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Sat, 21 Feb 2026 12:33:01 -0500 (EST) From: Junio C Hamano To: Mirko Faina Cc: git@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH] format-patch: better commit list for cover letter In-Reply-To: (Mirko Faina's message of "Sat, 21 Feb 2026 16:59:06 +0100") References: <20260220230633.132213-1-mroik@delayed.space> Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2026 09:33:00 -0800 Message-ID: User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Mirko Faina writes: > On Fri, Feb 20, 2026 at 10:02:21PM -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote: >> >> Just off the top of my head... >> >> Perhaps with >> >> [format] >> commitListFormat ;# true >> >> we use >> >> [1/1] format-patch: better commit list for cover letter >> >> and with >> >> [format] >> commitListFormat="%s (%an)" >> >> we use >> >> [1/1] format-patch: better commit list for cover letter (Mirko Faina) >> >> instead. IOW, the value of the configuration variable is used as >> the format argument "log --format=...", and appended to the fixed >> [n/m] that gives the numbers. >> >> Without format.commitListFormat defined, or when it is defined to >> false, we'd use the traditional "shortlog" format. >> >> Hmm? > > Yes, sounds good. > >> And the corresponding command line option can look like >> >> --cover-letter=(shortlog | log:) >> >> e.g., >> >> --cover-letter=log:"%s (%an)" >> >> to override configured value per invocation basis. > > Not too sure about this one. The point was to have a useful default for > the cover letter template. If users have to pass a format spec through > the command line it kinda defeates the purpose. When adding a configuration, never assume that the setting the user chooses is good for that user 100% of the time. You'd need a way from the command line to override a configured value. Not having a command line option does defeat the point of adding a configuration, which can even be used for a setting that is good for the user only 80% of the time.