Re: b4: prep --edit-cover emits strange message about "Already Ran"

[Dave Marquardt <davemarq@linux.ibm.com>]

Matthieu Baerts <matttbe@kernel.org> writes:

> Hi Dave,
>
> On 20/03/2026 15:41, Dave Marquardt wrote:
>> I found the message here a little confusing, and had to go code
>> spelunking to figure out what it might mean and how I should answer the
>> Y/N question.
>> 
>>     $ b4 prep --edit-cover
>>     Waiting for Emacs...
>>     Invoking git-filter-repo to update the cover letter.
>>     The previous run is older than a day (/home/davemarq/linux/linux/.git/worktrees/ibmvfc-fpin-bis/filter-repo/already_ran already exists).
>>     See "Already Ran" section in the manual for more information.
>>     Treat this run as a continuation of filtering in the previous run (Y/N)? n
>>     New history written in 612.22 seconds...
>>     Completely finished after 612.53 seconds.
>>     Cover letter updated.
>> 
>> I first searched the b4 manual, and found nothing about "Already Ran".
>> Eventually, on reading the b4 code in ez.py, I found this was from the
>> git-filter-repo package and I should check its manual. I found the code.
>> There's no way to opt out of this check and message.
>
> Yes, there is: simply by removing the file. That's what b4 is doing for
> a while, and it has been backported in the last stable version (0.14.3):
>
>
> https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/utils/b4/b4.git/commit/?h=stable-0.14.y&id=e5369681808b
>
> Is it not working on your side? If no, which b4 version are you using?

Okay, I have this code in my local version, and I think I know why it is
not working. This code uses

    gtl = b4.git_get_toplevel()

and b4.git_get_toplevel() uses

    gitargs = ['rev-parse', '--show-toplevel']
    lines = git_get_command_lines(path, gitargs)

But git-filter-repo uses

      git_dir = GitUtils.determine_git_dir(b'.')

and that is

    d = subproc.check_output('git rev-parse --git-dir'.split(),
                             cwd=repo_working_dir).strip()

Since I'm using a Git worktree, "git rev-parse --show-toplevel" and "git
rev-parse --git-dir" return different values:

    $ git rev-parse --show-toplevel
    /home/davemarq/linux/ibmvfc-fpin-bis
    $ git rev-parse --git-dir
    /home/davemarq/linux/linux/.git/worktrees/ibmvfc-fpin-bis

So the b4 code is looking in the wrong place.

I'll send a patch for this.

-Dave