On Tue, 2023-07-25 at 15:15 -0700, Jakub Kicinski wrote:

On Tue, 25 Jul 2023 14:18:15 -0700 Joe Perches wrote:

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@@ -544,7 +546,13 @@ foreach my $file (@ARGV) {
     if ($from_filename && (vcs_exists() && !vcs_file_exists($file))) {
 	warn "$P: file '$file' not found in version control $!\n";
     }
-    if ($from_filename || ($file ne "&STDIN" && vcs_file_exists($file))) {
+    if ($from_filename) {
+	if (!$silence_file_warning) {
+	    warn "$P: WARNING: Prefer running the script on patches as "
+	        . "generated by git format-patch. Selecting paths is known "
+		. "to miss recipients!\n";  

Don't separate a single output message into multiple lines.
Coalesce the string elements.

Also, this should show some reason why this isn't appropriate
as a patch to a single file would not have this issue.

e.g.:	When a patch series touches multiple files, showing all maintainers is useful. see:  <some process doc>

I tried to do that in --help. Added the "multiple files" one there, too.

It'd be more useful in the warning message.
Hardly anyone reads help.

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@@ -1089,6 +1098,10 @@ version: $V
    --pattern-depth=0 --remove-duplicates --rolestats]
 
 Notes:
+  Using "-f file" is generally discouraged, running the script on a filepatch
+      (as generated by git format-patch) is usually the right thing to do.
+      Commit message is an integral part of the change and $P
+      will extract additional information from it (keywords, Fixes tags etc.)  

"filepatch" doesn't appear in the kernel at all. Use "patch file".

I got it the wrong way around. I'll use patchfile (no space) for v2
since that's what's what get_maintainer uses in two other places.