Re: Maildir ordering in git-mailsplit (was: Using mutt as a git maintainer)

Richard Braun [off-list ref] writes:

On Sat, Aug 07, 2010 at 08:13:39AM +0530, Ramkumar Ramachandra wrote:

quoted

Ah, it looks like this problem went unnoticed probably because
everyone uses mboxes. One possible solution would be to teach
`git-mailsplit` to order the emails correctly. You can reply with an
RFC patch; I've CC'ed the Git list on this email.

Well, if everybody else has survived for five years with mbox patch
series, I guess I can do that too. With some not-so-difficult work, I
managed to have Mutt do what I wanted (that is, saving patch series in
mbox files in one macro and keep everything else with Maildir folders
untouched).

After some digging in the code, it doesn't look like a git issue. When
a Maildir folder is processed, its entries are actually sorted, unlike
what I first thought. populate_maildir_list() calls string_list_insert()
(in string-list.c) which does insertion sort through its static
add_entry() and get_entry_index() functions which use a bare strcmp() to
compare file names (it was path-list.c back in Git 1.5, same code).
When copying a threaded patch series in a Maildir folder with Mutt, here
are the names created:
1281177008.8677_101.myhostname:2,
1281177008.8677_103.myhostname:2,

[...]

1281177008.8677_11.myhostname:2,
1281177008.8677_13.myhostname:2,
1281177008.8677_15.myhostname:2,
1281177008.8677_17.myhostname:2,
1281177008.8677_19.myhostname:2,
1281177008.8677_1.myhostname:2,
1281177008.8677_21.myhostname:2,
1281177008.8677_23.myhostname:2,

And for such names, git am determines that e.g.
"1281177008.8677_107.myhostname:2", should be applied before
"1281177008.8677_17.myhostname:2,", which is obviously wrong.

I'm not sure about what depends on string-list.c, but based on the
output of a raw grep, it doesn't seem like a good idea to change the
way strings are sorted, especially if almost noone uses Maildir for
patch series. [...]

Would it be really that difficult to implement "version sort" in git
(like 'ls -v' / 'ls --sort=version' does), using strverscmp (and
provide fallback in compat/), and use it in git-am?

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland
ShadeHawk on #git