Re: support for git commit --amend/--signoff

[W Dan Meyer <wojciech.meyer@googlemail.com>]

Juri Linkov <juri@jurta.org> writes:

>>> Arguments: --amend --signoff
>>>
>>> This will provide interchangeability: the user will be able to copy
>>> arguments from the *VC-log* buffer to the external command line and
>>> back to the *VC-log* buffer to construct the necessary command line.
>>
>> That's very ugly from the UI point of view, it's not better than doing
>> the same thing from the command line directly.
>
> In Emacs it's easier to select files and to write a log message
> than doing the same in the command line.
>
> But currently vc mode is limited to a small set of supported arguments.
> Allowing to specify the command line arguments will give the user the
> full power of the command line when doing vc operations from Emacs.

Before I started using VC for real, I used to issue (and I still do it
sometimes), M-&, and just type the vcs command - this way I've had a
some completion, asynchronous command and output in a separate
buffer. Maybe something like C-x g . would be good but:

- with completion of possible commands (the interface is not really
  different, it is always a driver name and then token representing
  command)

- adjusting the output (choosing output buffer mode, being quiet, etc.)

- being quiet and synchronous for some class of commands

This would be based on the assumption that almost every time. `log'
command produces log, diff produces `diff' and `rm' could be silent and
not show the buffer (plus it could be possibly synchronous). So
adjusting those two things (completion and processing output) would give
certain advantages but allowed user to type any flavour of command he
wished.

BTW: There could be in Emacs sort of way of specifying grammar for
parsing command-line commands apart from usual user interfaces. It could
be generated from <command> -h. That could allow completion with online
help, and if the format is -h standarised enough even completion of
certain types of entries. (Like <file>).

>
>> More, for --amend it's desirable to copy the contents of the original
>> log in the *VC-log* buffer, so that the user can edit it, and check in
>> the modified version.
>
> Maybe, --amend is a special case that requires special processing.
> But generally it's also desirable to be able to specify the command line
> arguments from the *VC-log* buffer.

Wojciech