Subject: Re: [PATCH v9 1/2] [GSOC] docs: correct descript of trailer.<token>.command

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2021 13:42:43 -0700

"ZheNing Hu via GitGitGadget" <[email-masked]> writes:

>  trailer.<token>.command::
> +	This option can be used to specify a shell command that will be called:
> +	once to automatically add a trailer with the specified <token>, and then
> +	each time a '--trailer <token>=<value>' argument to modify the <value> of
> +	the trailer that this option would produce.
>  +
> -When this option is specified, the behavior is as if a special
> +When the specified command is first called to add a trailer
> +with the specified <token>, the behavior is as if a special
> +'--trailer <token>=<value>' argument was added at the beginning
> +of the "git interpret-trailers" command, where <value>
> +is taken to be the standard output of the command with any
> +leading and trailing whitespace trimmed off.

So, with

	[trailer "foo"] command = "echo $ARG"

in your .git/config

    $ git interpret-trailers </dev/null

gives 'foo:'.

> +If some '--trailer <token>=<value>' arguments are also passed
> +on the command line, the command is called again once for each
> +of these arguments with the same <token>. And the <value> part
> +of these arguments, if any, will be used to replace the first
> +occurrence of substring `$ARG` in the command. This way the
> +command can produce a <value> computed from the <value> passed
> +in the '--trailer <token>=<value>' argument.
>  +
> +For consistency, the first occurrence of substring `$ARG` is
> +also replaced, this time with the empty string, in the command
> +when the command is first called to add a trailer with the
> +specified <token>.

And then

    $ git interpret-trailers --trailer=foo:F </dev/null

would give you

    foo:
    foo: F

The above is quite an easy to read explanation of the behaviour.

I somehow wonder if this "run with empty even without anything on
the command line" a misfeature, and I'd prefer to iron it out before
we add .cmd, because we may not want to inherit it to the new .cmd,
just like we avoided '$ARG' that does not properly quote and
replaces only once from getting inherited by .cmd mechanism.

The reason why I suspect this may be a misfeature is because I do
not see any way to avoid 'foo' trailer once trailer.foo.command is
set.  Which means I cannot use this mechanism to emulate "commit -s",
which would hopefully be something like

	[trailer "signoff"]
		command = "git var GIT_COMMITTER_IDENT | sed -e 's/>.*/>/"
		ifexists = addIfDifferentNeighbor

And trailer.signoff.ifmissing=donothing would not help in this case,
either, I am afraid, as that would not just suppress the automatic
empty one, which is fairly useless, but also suppresses the one that
is made in response to the option from the command line.

Christian?  What's your thought on this?

I can understand that it sometimes may be useful to unconditionally
be able to add a trailer without doing anything from the command
line, but it feels fairly useless that an empty one is automatically
added, that the only way to hide that empty one from the end result
is to use ifexists=replace, and that there is no apparent way to remove
the empty one.

The --trim-empty option is a bit too crude a band-aid to use, as the
existing log message may have an unrelated trailer for which it is
perfectly valid not to have any value.

The fix we'd do when introducing .cmd should also get rid of this
initial "run with an empty even when not asked"?

Or if the execution without any input from the command line were
truly useful sometimes, a configuration variable that disables this
behaviour, i.e.

	[trailer "signoff"]
		command = "git who"
		ifexists = addIfDifferentNeighbor
                implicitExecution = false		

so that

	git commit --trailer=signoff:Couder --trailer=signoff:gitster@

would give us two sign-offs without the empty one, perhaps?

In any case, the documentation update in this step looks reasonably
well written.

Thanks.