git/t/t4014-format-patch.sh, branch jch

Merge branch 'ps/dash-buggy-0.5.13-workaround'

2026-04-03T22:24:45Z

The way dash 0.5.13 handles non-ASCII contents in here-doc is buggy and breaks our existing tests, which unfortunately have been rewritten to avoid triggering the bug. * ps/dash-buggy-0.5.13-workaround: t9300: work around partial read bug in Dash v0.5.13 t: work around multibyte bug in quoted heredocs with Dash v0.5.13

t: work around multibyte bug in quoted heredocs with Dash v0.5.13

2026-04-02T18:39:42Z

When executing our test suite with Dash v0.5.13.2 one can observe several test failures that all have the same symptoms: we have a quoted heredoc that contains multibyte characters, but the final data does not match what we actually wanted to write. One such example is in t0300, where we see the diffs like the following: --- expect-stdout 2026-04-01 07:25:45.249919440 +0000 +++ stdout 2026-04-01 07:25:45.254919509 +0000 @@ -1,5 +1,5 @@ protocol=https host=example.com -path=perú.git +path=perú.git username=foo password=bar While seemingly the same, the data that we've written via the heredoc contains some invisible bytes. The expected hex representation of the string is: 7065 72c3 ba2e 6769 74 per...git But what we actually get instead is this string: 7065 7285 02c3 ba02 852e 6769 74 per.......git What's important to note here is that the multibyte character exists in both versions. But in the broken version we see that the bytes are wrapped in a sequence of "85 02" and "02 85". This is the CTLMBCHAR byte sequence of Dash, which it uses internally to quote multibyte sequences. As it turns out, this bug was introduced in c5bf970 (expand: Add multi-byte support to pmatch, 2024-06-02), which adds multibyte support to more contexts of Dash. One of these contexts seems to be in heredocs, and Dash _does_ correctly unquote these multibyte sequences when using an unquoted heredoc. But the bug seems to be that this unquoting does not happen in quoted heredocs, and the bug still exists on the latest "master" branch. For now, work around the bug by using unquoted heredocs instead. Signed-off-by: Patrick Steinhardt Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano

format-patch: --commit-list-format without prefix

2026-03-23T20:06:59Z

Having to prefix a custom format-string with "log:" when passed from the CLI can be annoying. It would be great if this prefix wasn't required. Teach make_cover_letter() to accept custom format-strings without the "log:" prefix if a placeholder is detected. Note that both here and in "git log --format" the check is done naively by just checking for the presence of a '%'. Signed-off-by: Mirko Faina Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano

format-patch: add preset for --commit-list-format

2026-03-23T20:06:59Z

"git format-patch --commit-list-format" enables the user to make their own format for the commit list in the cover letter. It would be nice to have a ready to use format to replace shortlog. Teach make_cover_letter() the "modern" format preset. This new format is the same as: "log:[%(count)/%(total)] %s". Signed-off-by: Mirko Faina Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano

format.commitListFormat: strip meaning from empty

2026-03-23T20:06:59Z

The configuration variable format.commitListFormat allows for an empty value. This is unusual and can create issues when interacting with this configuration variable through the CLI. Strip meaning to format.commitListFormat with an empty value. Signed-off-by: Mirko Faina Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano

format-patch: rename --cover-letter-format option

2026-03-23T20:06:58Z

To align the name of the configuration variable and the name of the command line option, either one should change name. By changing the name of the option we get the added benefit of having --cover- expand to --cover-letter without ambiguity. If the user gives the --cover-letter-format option it would be reasonable to expect that the user wants to generate the cover letter despite not giving --cover-letter. Rename --cover-letter-format to --commit-list-format and make it imply --cover-letter unless --no-cover-letter is given. Signed-off-by: Mirko Faina Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano

Merge branch 'mf/format-patch-cover-letter-format' into mf/format-patch-commit-list-format

2026-03-16T19:42:54Z

* mf/format-patch-cover-letter-format: docs: add usage for the cover-letter fmt feature format-patch: add commitListFormat config format-patch: add ability to use alt cover format format-patch: move cover letter summary generation pretty.c: add %(count) and %(total) placeholders

Merge branch 'kh/format-patch-noprefix-is-boolean'

2026-03-10T21:23:17Z

The configuration variable format.noprefix did not behave as a proper boolean variable, which has now been fixed and documented. * kh/format-patch-noprefix-is-boolean: doc: diff-options.adoc: make *.noprefix split translatable doc: diff-options.adoc: show format.noprefix for format-patch format-patch: make format.noprefix a boolean

format-patch: add commitListFormat config

2026-03-07T01:16:44Z

Using "--cover-letter" we can tell format-patch to generate a cover letter, in this cover letter there's a list of commits included in the patch series and the format is specified by the "--cover-letter-format" option. Would be useful if this format could be configured from the config file instead of always needing to pass it from the command line. Teach format-patch how to read the format spec for the cover letter from the config files. The variable it should look for is called format.commitListFormat. Possible values: - commitListFormat is set but no string is passed: it will default to "[%(count)/%(total)] %s" - if a string is passed: will use it as a format spec. Note that this is either "shortlog" or a format spec prefixed by "log:" e.g."log:%s (%an)" - if commitListFormat is not set: it will default to the shortlog format. Signed-off-by: Mirko Faina Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano

format-patch: add ability to use alt cover format

2026-03-07T01:16:44Z

Often when sending patch series there's a need to clarify to the reviewer what's the purpose of said series, since it might be difficult to understand it from reading the commits messages one by one. "git format-patch" provides the useful "--cover-letter" flag to declare if we want it to generate a template for us to use. By default it will generate a "git shortlog" of the changes, which developers find less useful than they'd like, mainly because the shortlog groups commits by author, and gives no obvious chronological order. Give format-patch the ability to specify an alternative format spec through the "--cover-letter-format" option. This option either takes "shortlog", which is the current format, or a format spec prefixed with "log:". Example: git format-patch --cover-letter \ --cover-letter-format="log:[%(count)/%(total)] %s (%an)" HEAD~3 [1/3] this is a commit summary (Mirko Faina) [2/3] this is another commit summary (Mirko Faina) ... Signed-off-by: Mirko Faina Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano