Subject: Re: serious problem with `git format-patch' & `git am'

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:53:50 -0800

Brandon Casey <[email-masked]> writes:

> What does this line do?
>
> git-am.sh line 375:
>
>     case "$keep_subject" in -k)  SUBJECT="[PATCH] $SUBJECT" ;; esac
>
> It appears to do nothing.  It has existed since the beginning of git-am.sh,
> and there has never been another reference to $keep_subject in this script.
> Is it possible that $keep_subject is supposed to be $keep?

I do not think it is doing anything, and I do not think it makes sense to
"fix" it to allow adding "[PATCH] " in front either.  I'd vote for
removing the entire thing.

The $keep_subject variable and "add [PATCH] only to later strip" logic was
borrowed from git-applymbox and git-applypatch pair, see 6bff6a6 (Teach
applymbox to keep the Subject: line., 2005-08-16) especially for the
change that affects tools/git-applypatch in the commit.  I think there was
a reason that -k refrained from adding the prefix in git-applypatch but
the option to git-am needed to add the prefix which seems inconsistent but
I do not recall the details.  Maybe the list archive may know.