Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH] format-patch: better commit list for cover letter

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2026 21:55:37 -0800

Mirko Faina <[email-masked]> writes:

> On Fri, Feb 20, 2026 at 08:54:50PM -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>>  (1) Drop the abbreviated object name, as they are useless garbage.
>>      The result of applying these patches will not have these commit
>>      object names anyway, so even when people find these messages on
>>      a mail archive in 6 months, they will not find the result of
>>      applying the patches from the official project history with
>>      these object names.
>
> Should there be a reference to the author ident instead of the object
> name then? A quick glance on who worked on what before diving into the
> patches themselves might be useful.
>
>>  (2) Do we need to make this optional, in order to allow those users
>>      who do prefer the current "shortlog" style that groups patches
>>      from the same person together to keep the original style?  I am
>>      undecided myself.
>
> Maybe the "--cover-letter" option can take an argument like
> "--cover-letter=<shortlog | commitlist>". Although I doubt there's
> anyone that actually likes the shortlog version, it gives very little
> information. I'm inclined to think that most leave it there because they
> think it must be somewhat since it is the default, tho this is just my
> assumption.

Just off the top of my head...

Perhaps with

    [format]
	commitListFormat ;# true

we use

	[1/1] format-patch: better commit list for cover letter

and with

    [format]
	commitListFormat="%s (%an)"

we use

	[1/1] format-patch: better commit list for cover letter	(Mirko Faina)

instead.  IOW, the value of the configuration variable is used as
the format argument "log --format=...", and appended to the fixed
[n/m] that gives the numbers.

Without format.commitListFormat defined, or when it is defined to
false, we'd use the traditional "shortlog" format.

Hmm?