Re: [PATCH] get_maintainer/MAINTAINERS: confine K content matching to patches

[Joe Perches]

On Thu, 2023-10-05 at 11:30 -0700, Justin Stitt wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 5, 2023 at 11:15 AM Joe Perches <joe@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > 
> > On Thu, 2023-10-05 at 11:06 -0700, Justin Stitt wrote:
> > > On Wed, Oct 4, 2023 at 7:40 PM Joe Perches <joe@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > On Wed, 2023-10-04 at 21:21 +0000, Justin Stitt wrote:
> > > > > The current behavior of K: is a tad bit noisy. It matches against the
> > > > > entire contents of files instead of just against the contents of a
> > > > > patch.
> > > > > 
> > > > > This means that a patch with a single character change (fixing a typo or
> > > > > whitespace or something) would still to/cc maintainers and lists if the
> > > > > affected file matched against the regex pattern given in K:. For
> > > > > example, if a file has the word "clang" in it then every single patch
> > > > > touching that file will to/cc Nick, Nathan and some lists.
> > > > > 
> > > > > Let's change this behavior to only content match against patches
> > > > > (subjects, message, diff) as this is what most people expect the
> > > > > behavior already is. Most users of "K:" would prefer patch-only content
> > > > > matching. If this is not the case let's add a new matching type as
> > > > > proposed in [1].
> > > > 
> > > > I'm glad to know  you are coming around to my suggestion.
> > > :)
> > > 
> > > > 
> > > > I believe the file-based keyword matching should _not_ be
> > > > removed and the option should be added for it like I suggested.
> > > 
> > > Having a command line flag allowing get_maintainer.pl
> > > users to decide the behavior of K: is weird to me. If I'm a maintainer setting
> > > my K: in MAINTAINERS I want some sort of consistent behavior. Some
> > > patches will start hitting mailing list that DO have keywords in the patch
> > > and others, confusingly, not.
> > 
> > Not true.
> > 
> > If a patch contains a keyword match, get_maintainers will _always_
> > show the K: keyword maintainers unless --nokeywords is specified
> > on the command line.
> 
> ...
> 
> > 
> > If a file contains a keyword match, it'll only show the K:
> > keyword  if --keywords-in-file is set.
> 
> Right, what I'm saying is a patch can arrive in a maintainer's inbox
> wherein the patch itself has no mention of the keyword (if
> get_maintainer user opted for --keywords-in-file). Just trying to
> avoid some cases of the question: "Why is this in my inbox?"

Because the script user specifically asked for it.

> > > To note, we get some speed-up here as pattern matching a patch that
> > > touches lots of files would result in searching all of them in their
> > > entirety. Just removing this behavior _might_ have a measurable
> > > speed-up for patch series touching dozens of files.
> > 
> > Again, not true.
> > 
> > Patches do _not_ scan the original modified files for keyword matches.
> > Only the patch itself is scanned.  That's the current behavior as well.
> > 
> 
> Feel like I'm missing something here. How is K: matching keywords in
> files without reading them.
> 
> If my patch touches 10 files then all 10 of those files are scanned for
> K: matches right?

Nope.

Understand the patches are the input to get_maintainer and not
just files.

If a patch is fed to get_maintainer then any files modified by
the patch are _not_ scanned.

Only the patch _content_ is used for keyword matches.