[Freeipa-devel] git patch email issues

[Stephen Gallagher]

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On 02/12/2010 05:43 PM, John Dennis wrote:
> 
> 1) Continue to send patches the way we have making sure Thunderbird is
> configured to base64 encode them. Accept the fact that when displayed in
> a mail reader any UTF-8 will be garbled and you have to manually force
> Thunderbird to render the patch in UTF-8. The contents of the patch
> remains uncorrupted, it's just a display issue in the mail reader.
> 
> 2) Configure git-send-email to add the correct SMTP headers and use
> git-send-email. This is probably preferred because it's actually correct
> from an RFC standpoint.
> 
> Option 2 is actually pretty easy to use. My ~/.gitconfig is set up like
> this:
> 
> [sendemail]
>     smtpserver = smtp.corp.redhat.com
>     to = freeipa-devel at redhat.com
>     from = John Dennis <jdennis at redhat.com>
>     confirm = never
> [format]
>     headers = "Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset=\"utf-8\"\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n"
> 
> Those defaults in my .gitconfig means I never have to add any command
> line args to either git-format-patch or git-send-email, it's as easy as:
> 
> % git format-patch -1
> % git send-email 0001-some-patch-file
> 
> The downside of using git-send-email is whoever is applying the patch
> will have to save the entire email to a file instead of an attachment,
> which might be slightly more awkward. But as you can see from above it's
> very hard, and in most cases impossible, to get a patch sent as an
> attachment to have the correct charset specified. This is a pretty
> serious shortcoming and calls into question the use of attachments in
> the first place.
> 

The problem with option 2 is that you can only send a single patch as a
single email. This makes it difficult to invest a group of patches with
a sense that they are meant to sequentially effect a specific result. I
for one very often submit two or more patches as attachments to the same
email.

Furthermore, sometimes it's useful to provide more information about a
patch than you put in the commit message.

I think 'git send-email' is unsuitable for our purposes, and I strongly
recommend the use of base64 encoding.


Also, for the record, Thunderbird can be configured to use UTF-8 for
incoming and outgoing mail by default.  In Thunderbird preferences, go
to Display->Formatting->Fonts & Encodings.

- -- 
Stephen Gallagher
RHCE 804006346421761

Delivering value year after year.
Red Hat ranks #1 in value among software vendors.
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