Subject: Re: [RFC-PATCH v2 2/2] send-email: quote-email quotes the message body

From: Matthieu Moy <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 May 2016 17:01:11 +0200

Tom Russello <[email-masked]> writes:

> Currently, `send-email` without `--compose` implies `--annotate`.

I don't get it. Did you mean s/without/with/? Even if so, this is not
exactly true: "git send-email --compose -1" will open the editor only
for the cover-letter, while adding --annotate will also open it for the
patch.

> Keeping that behavior when using `--quote-email` populates the patch file with
> the quoted message body, and the patch is saved no matter what. If the user
> closes his editor and then exits `send-email`, changes will be saved.
>
> Should we keep the current behavior for the user, keeping the changes (including
> the quoted message body) in the patch, or should we discard them?

(Note: we discussed this off-list already, but I'll try to summarize my
thoughts here)

I don't have strong opinion on this, but I think there's a difference
between launching the editor directly on the input patch files
(resulting in _user_'s edit being done directly on them) and having the
script modify it in-place (resulting in automatic changes done directly
on the user's files).

I usually use "git send-email" directly without using "git
format-patch", so I'm not the best juge. But I can imagine a flow like

1) run "git send-email *.patch"

2) start editting

3) notice there's something wrong, give up for now (answer 'q' when git
   send-email prompts for confirmation, or kill it via Control-C in a
   terminal)

4) run "git send-email *.patch" again

5) be happy that changes done at 2) are still there.

With --quote-email, it's different. The scenario above would result in

5') WTF, why is the email quoted twice?

Unfortunately, I don't really have a solution for this. My first thought
was that we should copy the files to a temporary location before
starting the editor (that what I'm used to when using "git send-email"
without "git format-patch"), but that would prevent 5) above.

> @@ -109,7 +109,10 @@ is not set, this will be prompted for.
>  --quote-email=<email_file>::
>  	Reply to the given email and automatically populate the "To:", "Cc:" and
>  	"In-Reply-To:" fields. If `--compose` is set, this will also fill the
> -	subject field with "Re: [<email_file>'s subject]".
> +	subject field with "Re: [<email_file>'s subject]" and quote the message body
> +	of <email_file>.

I'd add "in the introductory message".

> +	while (<$fh>) {
> +		# Only for files containing crlf line endings
> +		s/\r//g;

The comment doesn't really say what it does.

What about "turn crlf line endings into lf-only"?

>  } elsif ($annotate) {
> -	do_edit(@files);
> +	if ($quote_email) {
> +		my $quote_email_filename = ($repo ?
> +			tempfile(".gitsendemail.msg.XXXXXX",
> +				DIR => $repo->repo_path()) :
> +			tempfile(".gitsendemail.msg.XXXXXX",
> +				DIR => "."))[1];
> +
> +		do_insert_quoted_message($quote_email_filename, $files[0]);
> +
> +		my $tmp = $files[0];
> +		$files[0] = $quote_email_filename;
> +
> +		do_edit(@files);
> +
> +		# Erase the original patch
> +		move($quote_email_filename, $tmp);
> +		$files[0] = $tmp;

When writing comment, always try to ask the question "why?" more than
"what?". This part is possibly controversial, think about a contributor
finding this piece of code later without having followed the current
conversation. He'd probably expect an explanation about why you need a
temp file here and not elsewhere.

> +	open my $c, "<", $original_file
> +	or die "Failed to open $original_file : " . $!;
> +
> +	open my $c2, ">", $tmp_file
> +		or die "Failed to open $tmp_file : " . $!;

No space before :.

> --- a/t/t9001-send-email.sh
> +++ b/t/t9001-send-email.sh
> @@ -1916,6 +1916,12 @@ test_expect_success $PREREQ 'Fields with --quote-email are correct' '
>  	echo "$cc_adr" | grep [email-masked]
>  '
>  
> +test_expect_success $PREREQ 'correct quoted message with --quote-email' '
> +	grep "On Sat, 12 Jun 2010 15:53:58 +0200, [email-masked] wrote:" msgtxt1 &&
> +	grep "> Have you seen my previous email?" msgtxt1 &&
> +	grep ">> Previous content" msgtxt1
> +'

When the spec says "if --compose ... then ...", "after the triple-dash",
and "in the first patch", one would expect at least one test with
--compose and one without, something to check that the insertion was
done below the triple-dash, and one test with two patches, checking that
the second patch is not altered by --quote-email.

-- 
Matthieu Moy
http://www-verimag.imag.fr/~moy/