Re: [patch 2/2] Documentation/process: Add tip tree handbook

Theodore Y. Ts'o
2018-11-08T20:14:47Z

On Thu, Nov 08, 2018 at 09:19:33AM -0800, Dan Williams wrote:
>
> I know at least StGit mail does not grok that "#"notation. I've
> stopped using it in favor of a "Fixes:" tag. I would think "Fixes:" is
> preferred over "# <KVER>" if only because it can be used to track
> fixes to commits that have been backported to stable. Is there any
> reason for "# <KVER>" to continue in a world where we have "Fixes:"?

The main annoyance I have with Fixes is because it can be a pain to
figure out what the "# <KVER>" would be. Something like:

% tag --contains DEADBEEF | grep ^v | head

doesn't work because kernel version numbers don't sort obviously. So
v4.10 comes before v4.3 using a normal sort, and even sort -n doesn't
do the right.

I suppose it wouldn't be that hard to write a perl/python script that
correctly sorts kernel version numbers, but when the "# <KVER>" is
present, I find it convenient.

(Also note that even with fast SSD's and/or everything in page cache,
runnning "tag --contains <COMMITID>" will take a good 3-4 seconds, and
if the git packs are not in the page cache, and/or you're unfortunate
enough to have your git trees on an HDD.... it's not pretty.)

- Ted