Subject: Re: [PATCH] format-patch: use current date in mbox 'From COMMIT DATE' header line

From: Chris Webb <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2010 16:55:23 +0100

Thomas Rast <[email-masked]> writes:

> Have you read
> 
>   http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/124082/focus=124092

I hadn't but have now. I don't buy the idea that this date is an unused
placeholder in mbox files, and therefore can be sensibly set to an arbitary
constant date in the distant past.

RFC4155 appendix A defines this date as the date a message was received.
This isn't directly applicable to the context of format-patch, but other
users of mbox format (e.g. MUAs doing an fcc) tend to fill it with the date
the message was generated, and might reasonably expect to be able to
sort on this date, e.g. when displaying a drafts folder.

If nothing else, it's extremely surprising to run format-patch, see a
ridiculous date and wonder how your system time has become corrupted while
you've been working!

Cheers,

Chris.