GNU logs - #15361, boring messages

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Subject: bug#15361: git send-email creates one report per patch
Resent-From: Glenn Morris <rgm@HIDDEN>
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To: 15361 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
From: Glenn Morris <rgm@HIDDEN>
Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2013 16:11:34 -0400
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Package: debbugs.gnu.org

If you send a collection of patches to bug-foo via git send-email,
it creates one report per patch. Here's why:

How it normally works:

You send a new report to the bug-foo mailing list.
You get an ack saying "thanks, reply to 123@debbugs with more info".
When the mail arrives at the bug-foo mailing list after processing,
it has "Bug#123" in the subject, and seems to be addressed "To: 123@debbugs".

If someone sends a reply, it either has "Re: Bug#123" in the subject, or
it goes to 123@debbugs. In either case, it is trivial for debbugs to
work out that the message is a reply to an existing bug rather than a
new report.

The lovely emails sent by git have no consistent subject and are all
addressed to bug-foo. Thus, there is no way to tell they are all
related except by tracking the message-id of the original report and
looking for a references: header in later emails.

I did actually implement that, but it replies on the message-id getting
into the bug database index, which is only updated every 5(?) minutes or
so. When a bunch of emails arrive all at the same time, as from git, it
cannot work.

To fix this, need to force message-id into the index immediately after a
new report arrives. I don't know how much work that is, or when I'll
have time to look at it.

Workaround: first create a report ("here's the problem for which I will
send a patch"), then send patches to that bug number rather than bug-foo.

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From: help-debbugs@HIDDEN (GNU bug Tracking System)
To: Glenn Morris <rgm@HIDDEN>
Subject: bug#15361: Acknowledgement (git send-email creates one report per
 patch)
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Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2013 20:12:02 +0000

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Message sent to help-debbugs@HIDDEN:

Subject: bug#15361: git send-email creates one report per patch
Resent-From: Jim Meyering <jim@HIDDEN>
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From: Jim Meyering <jim@HIDDEN>
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 2013 07:42:35 -0700
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On Thu, Sep 12, 2013 at 1:11 PM, Glenn Morris <rgm@HIDDEN> wrote:
> Package: debbugs.gnu.org
>
> If you send a collection of patches to bug-foo via git send-email,
> it creates one report per patch. Here's why:
...

Hi Glenn,
Doesn't git send-email's --in-reply-to option solve this problem?

       --in-reply-to=<identifier>
           Make the first mail (or all the mails with --no-thread) appear as a
           reply to the given Message-Id, which avoids breaking threads to
           provide a new patch series. The second and subsequent emails will
           be sent as replies according to the --[no]-chain-reply-to setting.

           So for example when --thread and --no-chain-reply-to are specified,
           the second and subsequent patches will be replies to the first one
           like in the illustration below where [PATCH v2 0/3] is in reply to
           [PATCH 0/2]:

               [PATCH 0/2] Here is what I did...
                 [PATCH 1/2] Clean up and tests
                 [PATCH 2/2] Implementation
                 [PATCH v2 0/3] Here is a reroll
                   [PATCH v2 1/3] Clean up
                   [PATCH v2 2/3] New tests
                   [PATCH v2 3/3] Implementation

Message sent to help-debbugs@HIDDEN:

Subject: bug#15361: git send-email creates one report per patch
Resent-From: Stefan Monnier <monnier@HIDDEN>
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To: Glenn Morris <rgm@HIDDEN>
Cc: 15361 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
From: Stefan Monnier <monnier@HIDDEN>
Message-ID: <jwvwqczcinz.fsf-monnier+bug#15361@HIDDEN>
References: <h9r4ctrea1.fsf@HIDDEN>
Date: Mon, 02 Jun 2014 13:49:14 -0400
In-Reply-To: <h9r4ctrea1.fsf@HIDDEN> (Glenn Morris's message of
 "Thu, 12 Sep 2013 16:11:34 -0400")
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> I did actually implement that, but it replies on the message-id getting
> into the bug database index, which is only updated every 5(?) minutes or
> so. When a bunch of emails arrive all at the same time, as from git, it
> cannot work.
> To fix this, need to force message-id into the index immediately after a
> new report arrives. I don't know how much work that is, or when I'll
> have time to look at it.

Doing it more promptly won't be always sufficient: the message may
arrive in a different order.  So in order to make it work reliably, we
should do something more devious, such as:
- postpone processing of messages with an "in-repy-to" that's not found
  in the message-id database.
- when we receive a message with an "in-reply-to" that's not found in
  the message-id database, allocate a new bug-nb for it and add that
  message-id to the database.  Then when a message arrives, don't only
  look for its in-reply-to in the database but also its message-id!
  And then figure out a way to handle the "deeper" threading case where
  we first receive the grand-child, then the grand parent, and only
  third the in-between.
Postponing, seems like a "cheap" way to solve 99% of the problem.


        Stefan

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