Re: stripping [PATCH] without losing later tags from mailed patches(Re: [ 02/12] Remove COMPAT_IA32 support)

From: Jonathan Nieder
Date: Mon Mar 12 2012 - 12:57:17 EST


Thomas Rast wrote:

> The problem with -b is that it's a backwards-compatibility shorthand for
> --binary, which used to pass --allow-binary-replacement (or --binary) to
> git-apply. However, that option was obsoleted in 2b6eef9 (Make apply
> --binary a no-op., 2006-09-06) and has been a no-op for over 5 years.
> It has also not been documented since cb3a160 (git-am: ignore --binary
> option, 2008-08-09).
>
> So perhaps we can safely claim -b for --keep-non-patch, like so:

Thanks.

It we want to be extra friendly to people who have been using
"format-patch --binary" with "am -b" in their scripts, we could have a
transitional period during which -b is treated as a usage error.

Luckily, a quick Google code search does not reveal any users for "am
-b", so I am not too worried and would not mind your patch that just
switches over right away, though. After all, the failure modes are:

- if my current script using "am -b" gets run using ancient git, it
will accept binary patches and will strip out too many brackets
in the subject line

- if my ancient script using "am -b" gets run using current git, it
will helpefully keep [IA64] brackets in the subject line

Neither seems terribly painful.

The manual would need to mention that this once meant --binary to
avoid confusion when that happens.

Hope that helps,
Jonathan
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