Subject: Re: [PATCH] doc/git-format-patch: link git-apply

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 2024 10:03:08 -0700

"Alexander Ziaee via GitGitGadget" <[email-masked]> writes:

> From: Alexander Ziaee <[email-masked]>
>
> git formatted patches can be applied with git-apply(1),

Not necessarily.  They are meant to be consumed via "am", which
knows how to unwrap MIME, split the message into the log part and
the diff part, and create a commit out of the result, by calling
"mailinfo", "apply" and "comimt-tree" as the underlying mechanism.

Simple patches can often be consumed by "apply", but that is not
guaranteed.

To put it another way, if we link "apply" because format-patch
output can (sometimes) be consumed with the command in order to use
its the diff part, we would need to link "mailinfo" because the
format-patch output can (always) be consumed with the command in
order to extract the log message part and separate the diff part
out.  So I am modereately negative on this change, especially we
already refer readers to "am" (and "am" in turn refers to "apply").

Thanks.

> so link git-apply(1) in git-format-patch(1) § see also.
>
> Signed-off-by:	Alexander Ziaee <[email-masked]>
> ---
>     doc/git-format-patch: link git-apply
>
> Published-As: https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git/releases/tag/pr-git-1785%2Fconcussious%2Fmaster-v1
> Fetch-It-Via: git fetch https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git pr-git-1785/concussious/master-v1
> Pull-Request: https://github.com/git/git/pull/1785
>
>  Documentation/git-format-patch.txt | 2 +-
>  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/git-format-patch.txt b/Documentation/git-format-patch.txt
> index 8708b315930..eeebc805d6c 100644
> --- a/Documentation/git-format-patch.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/git-format-patch.txt
> @@ -790,7 +790,7 @@ merge commit.
>  
>  SEE ALSO
>  --------
> -linkgit:git-am[1], linkgit:git-send-email[1]
> +linkgit:git-am[1], linkgit:git-apply[1], linkgit:git-send-email[1]
>  
>  GIT
>  ---
>
> base-commit: 94b60adee30619a05296cf5ed6addb0e6d4e25dc