Re: [PATCH] mailinfo: Remove only one set of square brackets

On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 11:55:51AM +0200, Andreas Ericsson wrote:

git-format-patch prepends patches with a [PATCH x/n] prefix, but
mailinfo used to remove any number of square-bracket pairs and
the content between them. This prevents one from using a commit
subject like this:

  [ and ] must be allowed as input

Removing the square bracket pair from this rather clumsily
constructed subject line loses important information, so we must
take care not to.

This patch causes the subject stripping to stop after it has
encountered one pair of square brackets.

I think this is a definite improvement, though I would be much more
convinced that the does the right thing if there were some tests. :)

One possible downside of this patch is that the patch-handling
programs will now fail at removing author-added square-brackets
to be removed, such as

  [RFC][PATCH x/n]

However, since format-patch only adds one set of square brackets,
this behaviour is quite easily undesrstood and defended while the
previous behaviour is not.

Agreed. And I think Junio raised a good point elsewhere: there are
certain formatting conventions that are part of format-patch output. So
I think we do need to address "this subject munging is totally idiot
proof and will always reproduce the input patch text exactly". But
rather "is this a sane and useful way to do the munging?". And I think
it is a useful convention.

This is a user-visible change that might impact people's workflows (if
only slightly), though, so it should probably get a good mention in the
release notes.

-Peff