Re: [PATCH] Documentation: explain "mboxrd" pretty format

Emma Brooks [off-list ref] writes:

On 2020-04-15 22:03:36-0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

quoted

quoted

+Like 'email', but lines in the commit message starting with "From "
+(preceded by zero or more ">") are quoted with ">" so they aren't
+confused as starting a new commit.

I am torn between rephrasing "starting a new commit" with "starting
a new e-mail message", and keeping it as-is.  Technically, the latter
is more correct---the >From quoting is a technique to avoid starting
a line with "From " in a reversible way, as pieces of e-mails in a
single mailbox file needs to be split at the boundary.  But in the
context of format-patch, perhaps saying each "record" in the output
file is a "commit" (not a piece of e-mail message) would probably be
an acceptable white lie.

While it is more accurate to say "starting a new email" rather than
"commit", I think it might be less confusing to say "starting a new
commit", if the reader isn't already familiar with how mbox works or its
variants, since the pretty formats control commit display and would
typically be thought about in terms of commits rather than emails.

Exactly.  That is why I said that I was torn between technical
correctness and tool-specific description.  "torn between" is quite
different from "inclined to prefer the one different from yours" ;-)