Subject: Re: [PATCH v2] format-patch: fix From header in cover letter

From: Jeff King <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2026 06:29:18 -0500

On Tue, Feb 17, 2026 at 08:21:32AM -0500, D. Ben Knoble wrote:

> > I think that wording comes from me back in 2013, and I just never gave
> > any thought to cover-letter generation by format-patch itself. I never
> > use it (and I probably forgot it even existed, given that most people
> > would use send-email's cover letter generation, and I do my own thing
> > with mutt).
> 
> Funny: the send-email manual's main mention of cover letters apart
> from setting Cc/To fields is in an example…
> 
>            $ git format-patch --cover-letter -M origin/master -o outgoing/
>            $ edit outgoing/0000-*
>            $ git send-email outgoing/*
> 
> …using format-patch! (Which is how I generate cover letters, and
> probably part of why.)

I think I may be showing my clueless-ness about send-email here. I
thought it had its own cover-letter code, but looking at it briefly, I
may just be wrong. I don't see any code, so I guess people generate the
cover-letter independently with format-patch.

Maybe nobody noticed because most people do not use "--from=<foo>" with
a <foo> that does not match the committer ident in the first place. I'm
not really sure why you'd want the two to differ. Which makes me wonder
why I added that feature in the first place (as opposed to just "--from"
with no options).

Mysteries of the cosmos, I guess.

-Peff