On Fri, Sep 09, 2016 at 04:34:47PM -0400, Jeff King wrote:

> This patch defines the patch-id of a merge commit as
> essentially "null"; it has no patch-id. As a result,
> merges cannot match patch-ids via "--cherry-pick", and
> "format-patch --base" will not list merges in its list of
> prerequisite patch ids.
> 
> To distinguish between real errors and "null", we have to
> expand the semantics of commit_patch_id()'s return value,
> and callers need to distinguish these cases.

One alternative would be to add an out-parameter that is set in the
success case saying "yes, we have a real patch-id". And then the callers
could look like:

  if (commit_patch_id(commit, &diffopt, sha1, 0, &got_one))
        die("error!");
  if (!got_one)
        continue; /* silently skip */

We could even use the null sha1 to signal that rather than an extra
parameter, I suppose.

I dunno. It would make the callers less clunky, I think, but it does
feel a bit magical.

-Peff

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