Subject: Re: [PATCH v8 2/4] format-patch: add ability to use alt cover format

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 2026 10:27:22 -0700

Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]> writes:

> Mirko Faina <[email-masked]> writes:
>
>>> future developers to introduce something other than "shortlog", no?
>>> If the version of Git in 'next' supports "longlog" and user gives
>>
>> Not really, anyone can introduce new formats, it's just an additional if
>> statement.
>>
>>> "--cover-letter-format=longlog" to their version that does not yet
>>> support it, it would be mistaken by the version of the code here as
>>> a "log:longlog" without any placeholder that shows a fixed string
>>> "longlog" for each commit in the series?  We'd rather want such an
>>> input to cause failure, no?
>>
>> Isn't that the same for any feature that is in next but not merged in
>> master yet? I wouldn't expect subcommands of history not yet merged in
>> master to work either if I'm using a version built from master. This is
>> an issue with the user and I don't think it's grounds for any issue.

You need to remember that some people use multiple machines with
different versions of Git installed.  Yet to be enabled option
should be diagnosed as an error to be safe.

> Or misspelt "chrnological".  What are we gaining by removing it,
> which would rob safe extensibility (aka "future-proofing") and typo
> detection?
>
> It is a bad idea to drop "log:", period.