1 # SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0+
2 # Copyright (c) 2011 The Chromium OS Authors.
7 This tool is a Python script which:
8 - Creates patch directly from your branch
9 - Cleans them up by removing unwanted tags
10 - Inserts a cover letter with change lists
11 - Runs the patches through checkpatch.pl and its own checks
12 - Optionally emails them out to selected people
14 It is intended to automate patch creation and make it a less
15 error-prone process. It is useful for U-Boot and Linux work so far,
16 since it uses the checkpatch.pl script.
18 It is configured almost entirely by tags it finds in your commits.
19 This means that you can work on a number of different branches at
20 once, and keep the settings with each branch rather than having to
21 git format-patch, git send-email, etc. with the correct parameters
22 each time. So for example if you put:
24 Series-to: fred.blogs@napier.co.nz
26 in one of your commits, the series will be sent there.
28 In Linux and U-Boot this will also call get_maintainer.pl on each of your
29 patches automatically (unless you use -m to disable this).
35 This tool requires a certain way of working:
37 - Maintain a number of branches, one for each patch series you are
39 - Add tags into the commits within each branch to indicate where the
40 series should be sent, cover letter, version, etc. Most of these are
41 normally in the top commit so it is easy to change them with 'git
43 - Each branch tracks the upstream branch, so that this script can
44 automatically determine the number of commits in it (optional)
45 - Check out a branch, and run this script to create and send out your
46 patches. Weeks later, change the patches and repeat, knowing that you
47 will get a consistent result each time.
53 For most cases of using patman for U-Boot development, patman can use the
54 file 'doc/git-mailrc' in your U-Boot directory to supply the email aliases
55 you need. To make this work, tell git where to find the file by typing
58 git config sendemail.aliasesfile doc/git-mailrc
60 For both Linux and U-Boot the 'scripts/get_maintainer.pl' handles figuring
61 out where to send patches pretty well.
63 During the first run patman creates a config file for you by taking the default
64 user name and email address from the global .gitconfig file.
66 To add your own, create a file ~/.patman like this:
72 me: Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org>
74 u-boot: U-Boot Mailing List <u-boot@lists.denx.de>
75 wolfgang: Wolfgang Denk <wd@denx.de>
76 others: Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org>, Fred Bloggs <f.bloggs@napier.net>
80 Aliases are recursive.
82 The checkpatch.pl in the U-Boot tools/ subdirectory will be located and
83 used. Failing that you can put it into your path or ~/bin/checkpatch.pl
85 If you want to avoid sending patches to email addresses that are picked up
86 by patman but are known to bounce you can add a [bounces] section to your
87 .patman file. Unlike the [alias] section these are simple key: value pairs
88 that are not recursive.
93 gonefishing: Fred Bloggs <f.bloggs@napier.net>
98 If you want to change the defaults for patman's command-line arguments,
99 you can add a [settings] section to your .patman file. This can be used
100 for any command line option by referring to the "dest" for the option in
101 patman.py. For reference, the useful ones (at the moment) shown below
102 (all with the non-default setting):
114 If you want to adjust settings (or aliases) that affect just a single
115 project you can add a section that looks like [project_settings] or
116 [project_alias]. If you want to use tags for your linux work, you could
132 $ ./tools/patman/patman -n
134 If it can't detect the upstream branch, try telling it how many patches
135 there are in your series:
137 $ ./tools/patman/patman -n -c5
139 This will create patch files in your current directory and tell you who
140 it is thinking of sending them to. Take a look at the patch files.
142 $ ./tools/patman/patman -n -c5 -s1
144 Similar to the above, but skip the first commit and take the next 5. This
145 is useful if your top commit is for setting up testing.
151 The most up to date version of patman can be found in the U-Boot sources.
152 However to use it on other projects it may be more convenient to install it as
153 a standalone application. A distutils installer is included, this can be used
156 $ cd tools/patman && python setup.py install
162 To make this script useful you must add tags like the following into any
163 commit. Most can only appear once in the whole series.
165 Series-to: email / alias
166 Email address / alias to send patch series to (you can add this
169 Series-cc: email / alias, ...
170 Email address / alias to Cc patch series to (you can add this
174 Sets the version number of this patch series
176 Series-prefix: prefix
177 Sets the subject prefix. Normally empty but it can be RFC for
178 RFC patches, or RESEND if you are being ignored. The patch subject
179 is like [RFC PATCH] or [RESEND PATCH].
180 In the meantime, git format.subjectprefix option will be added as
181 well. If your format.subjectprefix is set to InternalProject, then
182 the patch shows like: [InternalProject][RFC/RESEND PATCH]
185 Sets the name of the series. You don't need to have a name, and
186 patman does not yet use it, but it is convenient to put the branch
187 name here to help you keep track of multiple upstreaming efforts.
190 This is the patch set title
194 Sets the cover letter contents for the series. The first line
195 will become the subject of the cover letter
197 Cover-letter-cc: email / alias
198 Additional email addresses / aliases to send cover letter to (you
199 can add this multiple times)
206 Sets some notes for the patch series, which you don't want in
207 the commit messages, but do want to send, The notes are joined
208 together and put after the cover letter. Can appear multiple
216 Similar, but for a single commit (patch). These notes will appear
217 immediately below the --- cut in the patch file.
219 Signed-off-by: Their Name <email>
220 A sign-off is added automatically to your patches (this is
221 probably a bug). If you put this tag in your patches, it will
222 override the default signoff that patman automatically adds.
223 Multiple duplicate signoffs will be removed.
225 Tested-by: Their Name <email>
226 Reviewed-by: Their Name <email>
227 Acked-by: Their Name <email>
228 These indicate that someone has tested/reviewed/acked your patch.
229 When you get this reply on the mailing list, you can add this
230 tag to the relevant commit and the script will include it when
231 you send out the next version. If 'Tested-by:' is set to
232 yourself, it will be removed. No one will believe you.
235 - Guinea pig moved into its cage
236 - Other changes ending with a blank line
238 This can appear in any commit. It lists the changes for a
239 particular version n of that commit. The change list is
240 created based on this information. Each commit gets its own
241 change list and also the whole thing is repeated in the cover
242 letter (where duplicate change lines are merged).
244 By adding your change lists into your commits it is easier to
245 keep track of what happened. When you amend a commit, remember
246 to update the log there and then, knowing that the script will
249 Patch-cc: Their Name <email>
250 This copies a single patch to another email address. Note that the
251 Cc: used by git send-email is ignored by patman, but will be
252 interpreted by git send-email if you use it.
254 Series-process-log: sort, uniq
255 This tells patman to sort and/or uniq the change logs. It is
256 assumed that each change log entry is only a single line long.
257 Use 'sort' to sort the entries, and 'uniq' to include only
258 unique entries. If omitted, no change log processing is done.
259 Separate each tag with a comma.
261 Various other tags are silently removed, like these Chrome OS and
269 Commit-xxxx: (except Commit-notes)
271 Exercise for the reader: Try adding some tags to one of your current
272 patch series and see how the patches turn out.
275 Where Patches Are Sent
276 ======================
278 Once the patches are created, patman sends them using git send-email. The
279 whole series is sent to the recipients in Series-to: and Series-cc.
280 You can Cc individual patches to other people with the Patch-cc: tag. Tags
281 in the subject are also picked up to Cc patches. For example, a commit like
285 commit 10212537b85ff9b6e09c82045127522c0f0db981
286 Author: Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org>
287 Date: Mon Nov 7 23:18:44 2011 -0500
289 x86: arm: add a git mailrc file for maintainers
291 This should make sending out e-mails to the right people easier.
293 Patch-cc: sandbox, mikef, ag
297 will create a patch which is copied to x86, arm, sandbox, mikef, ag and
300 If you have a cover letter it will get sent to the union of the Patch-cc
301 lists of all of the other patches. If you want to sent it to additional
302 people you can add a tag:
304 Cover-letter-cc: <list of addresses>
306 These people will get the cover letter even if they are not on the To/Cc
307 list for any of the patches.
313 The basic workflow is to create your commits, add some tags to the top
314 commit, and type 'patman' to check and send them.
316 Here is an example workflow for a series of 4 patches. Let's say you have
317 these rather contrived patches in the following order in branch us-cmd in
318 your tree where 'us' means your upstreaming activity (newest to oldest as
319 output by git log --oneline):
322 89234f5 Don't include standard parser if hush is used
323 8d640a7 mmc: sparc: Stop using builtin_run_command()
324 0c859a9 Rename run_command2() to run_command()
325 a74443f sandbox: Rename run_command() to builtin_run_command()
327 The first patch is some test things that enable your code to be compiled,
328 but that you don't want to submit because there is an existing patch for it
329 on the list. So you can tell patman to create and check some patches
330 (skipping the first patch) with:
334 If you want to do all of them including the work-in-progress one, then
335 (if you are tracking an upstream branch):
339 Let's say that patman reports an error in the second patch. Then:
342 <change 'pick' to 'edit' in 89234f5>
343 <use editor to make code changes>
345 git rebase --continue
347 Now you have an updated patch series. To check it:
351 Let's say it is now clean and you want to send it. Now you need to set up
352 the destination. So amend the top commit with:
356 Use your editor to add some tags, so that the whole commit message is:
358 The current run_command() is really only one of the options, with
359 hush providing the other. It really shouldn't be called directly
360 in case the hush parser is bring used, so rename this function to
361 better explain its purpose.
364 Series-cc: bfin, marex
367 Unified command execution in one place
369 At present two parsers have similar code to execute commands. Also
370 cmd_usage() is called all over the place. This series adds a single
371 function which processes commands called cmd_process().
374 Change-Id: Ica71a14c1f0ecb5650f771a32fecb8d2eb9d8a17
377 You want this to be an RFC and Cc the whole series to the bfin alias and
378 to Marek. Two of the patches have tags (those are the bits at the front of
379 the subject that say mmc: sparc: and sandbox:), so 8d640a7 will be Cc'd to
380 mmc and sparc, and the last one to sandbox.
382 Now to send the patches, take off the -n flag:
386 The patches will be created, shown in your editor, and then sent along with
387 the cover letter. Note that patman's tags are automatically removed so that
388 people on the list don't see your secret info.
390 Of course patches often attract comments and you need to make some updates.
391 Let's say one person sent comments and you get an Acked-by: on one patch.
392 Also, the patch on the list that you were waiting for has been merged,
393 so you can drop your wip commit. So you resync with upstream:
395 git fetch origin (or whatever upstream is called)
396 git rebase origin/master
398 and use git rebase -i to edit the commits, dropping the wip one. You add
399 the ack tag to one commit:
401 Acked-by: Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
403 update the Series-cc: in the top commit:
405 Series-cc: bfin, marex, Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
407 and remove the Series-prefix: tag since it it isn't an RFC any more. The
408 series is now version two, so the series info in the top commit looks like
412 Series-cc: bfin, marex, Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
417 Finally, you need to add a change log to the two commits you changed. You
418 add change logs to each individual commit where the changes happened, like
422 - Updated the command decoder to reduce code size
423 - Wound the torque propounder up a little more
425 (note the blank line at the end of the list)
427 When you run patman it will collect all the change logs from the different
428 commits and combine them into the cover letter, if you have one. So finally
429 you have a new series of commits:
431 faeb973 Don't include standard parser if hush is used
432 1b2f2fe mmc: sparc: Stop using builtin_run_command()
433 cfbe330 Rename run_command2() to run_command()
434 0682677 sandbox: Rename run_command() to builtin_run_command()
440 and it will create and send the version 2 series.
444 1. When you change back to the us-cmd branch days or weeks later all your
445 information is still there, safely stored in the commits. You don't need
446 to remember what version you are up to, who you sent the last lot of patches
447 to, or anything about the change logs.
449 2. If you put tags in the subject, patman will Cc the maintainers
450 automatically in many cases.
452 3. If you want to keep the commits from each series you sent so that you can
453 compare change and see what you did, you can either create a new branch for
454 each version, or just tag the branch before you start changing it:
456 git tag sent/us-cmd-rfc
458 git tag sent/us-cmd-v2
460 4. If you want to modify the patches a little before sending, you can do
461 this in your editor, but be careful!
463 5. If you want to run git send-email yourself, use the -n flag which will
464 print out the command line patman would have used.
466 6. It is a good idea to add the change log info as you change the commit,
467 not later when you can't remember which patch you changed. You can always
468 go back and change or remove logs from commits.
474 This script has been split into sensible files but still needs work.
475 Most of these are indicated by a TODO in the code.
477 It would be nice if this could handle the In-reply-to side of things.
479 The tests are incomplete, as is customary. Use the --test flag to run them,
480 and make sure you are in the tools/patman directory first:
486 Error handling doesn't always produce friendly error messages - e.g.
487 putting an incorrect tag in a commit may provide a confusing message.
489 There might be a few other features not mentioned in this README. They
490 might be bugs. In particular, tags are case sensitive which is probably
494 Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org>