Florian Weimer <f...@deneb.enyo.de> writes:
> git mailinfo splits a message into headers, commit message, and patch
> text, but does not actually parse the patch text. As a result, the
> patch portion produced by git mailinfo can contain something that
> looks like a patch, but actually isn't.
Yes, mailinfo is about splitting the header, log message and the
remainder, and parsing the remainder to use it as a patch text is
left to the consumer of the "patch" file it produces.
> Is there a way to get the patch data, as parsed by git apply or git
> am, and dump it back in patch format, without actually applying the
> patch to a working tree?
So, "the patch data as used by apply" is what you get from mailinfo.
If it is a patch that applies to what you have in the working tree
and/or the index is something you can/must ask "git apply". IOW,
when "git mailinfo" stored in $GIT_DIR/rebase-apply/patch the
"remainder" of the message, you could
git apply --check [--index] $GIT_DIR/rebase-apply/patch
to see if it is an OK patch. If it is, then there is no need to
further "dump it back in patch format"; what you just fed to "apply
--check" is already in the patch format.
