1 # Copyright (c) 2011 The Chromium OS Authors.
3 # See file CREDITS for list of people who contributed to this
6 # This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
7 # modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
8 # published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of
9 # the License, or (at your option) any later version.
11 # This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
12 # but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
13 # MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
14 # GNU General Public License for more details.
16 # You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
17 # along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
18 # Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston,
25 This tool is a Python script which:
26 - Creates patch directly from your branch
27 - Cleans them up by removing unwanted tags
28 - Inserts a cover letter with change lists
29 - Runs the patches through checkpatch.pl and its own checks
30 - Optionally emails them out to selected people
32 It is intended to automate patch creation and make it a less
33 error-prone process. It is useful for U-Boot and Linux work so far,
34 since it uses the checkpatch.pl script.
36 It is configured almost entirely by tags it finds in your commits.
37 This means that you can work on a number of different branches at
38 once, and keep the settings with each branch rather than having to
39 git format-patch, git send-email, etc. with the correct parameters
40 each time. So for example if you put:
42 Series-to: fred.blogs@napier.co.nz
44 in one of your commits, the series will be sent there.
50 This tool requires a certain way of working:
52 - Maintain a number of branches, one for each patch series you are
54 - Add tags into the commits within each branch to indicate where the
55 series should be sent, cover letter, version, etc. Most of these are
56 normally in the top commit so it is easy to change them with 'git
58 - Each branch tracks the upstream branch, so that this script can
59 automatically determine the number of commits in it (optional)
60 - Check out a branch, and run this script to create and send out your
61 patches. Weeks later, change the patches and repeat, knowing that you
62 will get a consistent result each time.
68 For most cases patman will locate and use the file 'doc/git-mailrc' in
69 your U-Boot directory. This contains most of the aliases you will need.
71 To add your own, create a file ~/.config/patman directory like this:
77 me: Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org>
79 u-boot: U-Boot Mailing List <u-boot@lists.denx.de>
80 wolfgang: Wolfgang Denk <wd@denx.de>
81 others: Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org>, Fred Bloggs <f.bloggs@napier.net>
85 Aliases are recursive.
87 The checkpatch.pl in the U-Boot tools/ subdirectory will be located and
88 used. Failing that you can put it into your path or ~/bin/checkpatch.pl
96 $ ./tools/patman/patman -n
98 If it can't detect the upstream branch, try telling it how many patches
99 there are in your series:
101 $ ./tools/patman/patman -n -c5
103 This will create patch files in your current directory and tell you who
104 it is thinking of sending them to. Take a look at the patch files.
106 $ ./tools/patman/patman -n -c5 -s1
108 Similar to the above, but skip the first commit and take the next 5. This
109 is useful if your top commit is for setting up testing.
115 To make this script useful you must add tags like the following into any
116 commit. Most can only appear once in the whole series.
118 Series-to: email / alias
119 Email address / alias to send patch series to (you can add this
122 Series-cc: email / alias, ...
123 Email address / alias to Cc patch series to (you can add this
127 Sets the version number of this patch series
129 Series-prefix: prefix
130 Sets the subject prefix. Normally empty but it can be RFC for
131 RFC patches, or RESEND if you are being ignored.
134 This is the patch set title
138 Sets the cover letter contents for the series. The first line
139 will become the subject of the cover letter
146 Sets some notes for the patch series, which you don't want in
147 the commit messages, but do want to send, The notes are joined
148 together and put after the cover letter. Can appear multiple
151 Signed-off-by: Their Name <email>
152 A sign-off is added automatically to your patches (this is
153 probably a bug). If you put this tag in your patches, it will
154 override the default signoff that patman automatically adds.
156 Tested-by: Their Name <email>
157 Acked-by: Their Name <email>
158 These indicate that someone has acked or tested your patch.
159 When you get this reply on the mailing list, you can add this
160 tag to the relevant commit and the script will include it when
161 you send out the next version. If 'Tested-by:' is set to
162 yourself, it will be removed. No one will believe you.
165 - Guinea pig moved into its cage
166 - Other changes ending with a blank line
168 This can appear in any commit. It lists the changes for a
169 particular version n of that commit. The change list is
170 created based on this information. Each commit gets its own
171 change list and also the whole thing is repeated in the cover
172 letter (where duplicate change lines are merged).
174 By adding your change lists into your commits it is easier to
175 keep track of what happened. When you amend a commit, remember
176 to update the log there and then, knowing that the script will
179 Cc: Their Name <email>
180 This copies a single patch to another email address.
182 Various other tags are silently removed, like these Chrome OS and
193 Exercise for the reader: Try adding some tags to one of your current
194 patch series and see how the patches turn out.
197 Where Patches Are Sent
198 ======================
200 Once the patches are created, patman sends them using git send-email. The
201 whole series is sent to the recipients in Series-to: and Series-cc.
202 You can Cc individual patches to other people with the Cc: tag. Tags in the
203 subject are also picked up to Cc patches. For example, a commit like this:
206 commit 10212537b85ff9b6e09c82045127522c0f0db981
207 Author: Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org>
208 Date: Mon Nov 7 23:18:44 2011 -0500
210 x86: arm: add a git mailrc file for maintainers
212 This should make sending out e-mails to the right people easier.
214 Cc: sandbox, mikef, ag
218 will create a patch which is copied to x86, arm, sandbox, mikef, ag and
225 The basic workflow is to create your commits, add some tags to the top
226 commit, and type 'patman' to check and send them.
228 Here is an example workflow for a series of 4 patches. Let's say you have
229 these rather contrived patches in the following order in branch us-cmd in
230 your tree where 'us' means your upstreaming activity (newest to oldest as
231 output by git log --oneline):
234 89234f5 Don't include standard parser if hush is used
235 8d640a7 mmc: sparc: Stop using builtin_run_command()
236 0c859a9 Rename run_command2() to run_command()
237 a74443f sandbox: Rename run_command() to builtin_run_command()
239 The first patch is some test things that enable your code to be compiled,
240 but that you don't want to submit because there is an existing patch for it
241 on the list. So you can tell patman to create and check some patches
242 (skipping the first patch) with:
246 If you want to do all of them including the work-in-progress one, then
247 (if you are tracking an upstream branch):
251 Let's say that patman reports an error in the second patch. Then:
254 <change 'pick' to 'edit' in 89234f5>
255 <use editor to make code changes>
257 git rebase --continue
259 Now you have an updated patch series. To check it:
263 Let's say it is now clean and you want to send it. Now you need to set up
264 the destination. So amend the top commit with:
268 Use your editor to add some tags, so that the whole commit message is:
270 The current run_command() is really only one of the options, with
271 hush providing the other. It really shouldn't be called directly
272 in case the hush parser is bring used, so rename this function to
273 better explain its purpose.
276 Series-cc: bfin, marex
279 Unified command execution in one place
281 At present two parsers have similar code to execute commands. Also
282 cmd_usage() is called all over the place. This series adds a single
283 function which processes commands called cmd_process().
286 Change-Id: Ica71a14c1f0ecb5650f771a32fecb8d2eb9d8a17
289 You want this to be an RFC and Cc the whole series to the bfin alias and
290 to Marek. Two of the patches have tags (those are the bits at the front of
291 the subject that say mmc: sparc: and sandbox:), so 8d640a7 will be Cc'd to
292 mmc and sparc, and the last one to sandbox.
294 Now to send the patches, take off the -n flag:
298 The patches will be created, shown in your editor, and then sent along with
299 the cover letter. Note that patman's tags are automatically removed so that
300 people on the list don't see your secret info.
302 Of course patches often attract comments and you need to make some updates.
303 Let's say one person sent comments and you get an Acked-by: on one patch.
304 Also, the patch on the list that you were waiting for has been merged,
305 so you can drop your wip commit. So you resync with upstream:
307 git fetch origin (or whatever upstream is called)
308 git rebase origin/master
310 and use git rebase -i to edit the commits, dropping the wip one. You add
311 the ack tag to one commit:
313 Acked-by: Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
315 update the Series-cc: in the top commit:
317 Series-cc: bfin, marex, Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
319 and remove the Series-prefix: tag since it it isn't an RFC any more. The
320 series is now version two, so the series info in the top commit looks like
324 Series-cc: bfin, marex, Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
329 Finally, you need to add a change log to the two commits you changed. You
330 add change logs to each individual commit where the changes happened, like
334 - Updated the command decoder to reduce code size
335 - Wound the torque propounder up a little more
337 (note the blank line at the end of the list)
339 When you run patman it will collect all the change logs from the different
340 commits and combine them into the cover letter, if you have one. So finally
341 you have a new series of commits:
343 faeb973 Don't include standard parser if hush is used
344 1b2f2fe mmc: sparc: Stop using builtin_run_command()
345 cfbe330 Rename run_command2() to run_command()
346 0682677 sandbox: Rename run_command() to builtin_run_command()
352 and it will create and send the version 2 series.
356 1. When you change back to the us-cmd branch days or weeks later all your
357 information is still there, safely stored in the commits. You don't need
358 to remember what version you are up to, who you sent the last lot of patches
359 to, or anything about the change logs.
361 2. If you put tags in the subject, patman will Cc the maintainers
362 automatically in many cases.
364 3. If you want to keep the commits from each series you sent so that you can
365 compare change and see what you did, you can either create a new branch for
366 each version, or just tag the branch before you start changing it:
368 git tag sent/us-cmd-rfc
370 git tag sent/us-cmd-v2
372 4. If you want to modify the patches a little before sending, you can do
373 this in your editor, but be careful!
375 5. If you want to run git send-email yourself, use the -n flag which will
376 print out the command line patman would have used.
378 6. It is a good idea to add the change log info as you change the commit,
379 not later when you can't remember which patch you changed. You can always
380 go back and change or remove logs from commits.
386 This script has been split into sensible files but still needs work.
387 Most of these are indicated by a TODO in the code.
389 It would be nice if this could handle the In-reply-to side of things.
391 The tests are incomplete, as is customary. Use the -t flag to run them,
392 and make sure you are in the tools/scripts/patman directory first:
395 $ cd tools/scripts/patman
398 Error handling doesn't always produce friendly error messages - e.g.
399 putting an incorrect tag in a commit may provide a confusing message.
401 There might be a few other features not mentioned in this README. They
402 might be bugs. In particular, tags are case sensitive which is probably
406 Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org>