Re: [PATCH 1/2] format-patch: have progress option while generating patches

Hi Peff,

On Wed, 31 May 2017, Jeff King wrote:

I'm generally in favor of progress meters, though it does seem a little
funny to me that we'd need one on format-patch.

When working with huge repositories with a large number of branches, it is
all too easy to pick the wrong branch to rebase to. In that case, it can
take a long time for the `git rebase` call to even generate the mbox.

Kevin's patch is a visual indication when this is happening.

Instead of being puzzled by `git rebase` "hanging", the user will now see
that (.../21957) patch is generated and will have a chance to say "wait a
minute, *that* many patches? I think I meant a different branch".

And since format-patch generates the patches for `git rebase` (actually,
it generates an mbox that then has to be split again, but you get the
gist), it is format-patch that needs to output the progress.

Ciao,
dscho