[PATCH] patchbomb: Support initial in-reply-to header

[Brodie Rao]

On Apr 8, 2009, at 10:17 AM, timeless wrote:

> Henrik Stuart wrote:
>> +++ b/hgext/patchbomb.py
>> +          ('', 'inreplyto', '',
>> +           _('unique email identifier the messages are in reply  
>> to')),
>
> "identifying" or "identifier for"
>
> and "are in reply to" doesn't work (among other things, it ends a
> thing with a preposition)
>
> if you mean a specific header which has hyphens, use it
>
> (note: i won't be able to reply for a while, so someone else should
> walk you through the English. sorry for complaining and running
> [hiding])

I think it's supposed to read like this: "[The] unique email  
identifier [that] the messages are in reply to."

I don't see anything grammatically incorrect. Preposition stranding  
isn't incorrect in English, and I think it'd sound really contrived  
otherwise: "[The] unique email identifier to which the messages are in  
reply."

That said, there's probably a clearer way to word the sentence. One  
obvious improvement would be to use rfc2822's terminology: "unique  
message identifier." Perhaps some mention of threading could be made,  
maybe as an example in the command's help text.

I also think the option name itself could benefit from hyphens: --in- 
reply-to is easier to read than --inreplyto.