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 During the first run patman creates a config file for you by taking the default
72 user name and email address from the global .gitconfig file.
74 To add your own, create a file ~/.patman like this:
80 me: Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org>
82 u-boot: U-Boot Mailing List <u-boot@lists.denx.de>
83 wolfgang: Wolfgang Denk <wd@denx.de>
84 others: Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org>, Fred Bloggs <f.bloggs@napier.net>
88 Aliases are recursive.
90 The checkpatch.pl in the U-Boot tools/ subdirectory will be located and
91 used. Failing that you can put it into your path or ~/bin/checkpatch.pl
99 $ ./tools/patman/patman -n
101 If it can't detect the upstream branch, try telling it how many patches
102 there are in your series:
104 $ ./tools/patman/patman -n -c5
106 This will create patch files in your current directory and tell you who
107 it is thinking of sending them to. Take a look at the patch files.
109 $ ./tools/patman/patman -n -c5 -s1
111 Similar to the above, but skip the first commit and take the next 5. This
112 is useful if your top commit is for setting up testing.
118 To make this script useful you must add tags like the following into any
119 commit. Most can only appear once in the whole series.
121 Series-to: email / alias
122 Email address / alias to send patch series to (you can add this
125 Series-cc: email / alias, ...
126 Email address / alias to Cc patch series to (you can add this
130 Sets the version number of this patch series
132 Series-prefix: prefix
133 Sets the subject prefix. Normally empty but it can be RFC for
134 RFC patches, or RESEND if you are being ignored.
137 This is the patch set title
141 Sets the cover letter contents for the series. The first line
142 will become the subject of the cover letter
149 Sets some notes for the patch series, which you don't want in
150 the commit messages, but do want to send, The notes are joined
151 together and put after the cover letter. Can appear multiple
154 Signed-off-by: Their Name <email>
155 A sign-off is added automatically to your patches (this is
156 probably a bug). If you put this tag in your patches, it will
157 override the default signoff that patman automatically adds.
159 Tested-by: Their Name <email>
160 Acked-by: Their Name <email>
161 These indicate that someone has acked or tested your patch.
162 When you get this reply on the mailing list, you can add this
163 tag to the relevant commit and the script will include it when
164 you send out the next version. If 'Tested-by:' is set to
165 yourself, it will be removed. No one will believe you.
168 - Guinea pig moved into its cage
169 - Other changes ending with a blank line
171 This can appear in any commit. It lists the changes for a
172 particular version n of that commit. The change list is
173 created based on this information. Each commit gets its own
174 change list and also the whole thing is repeated in the cover
175 letter (where duplicate change lines are merged).
177 By adding your change lists into your commits it is easier to
178 keep track of what happened. When you amend a commit, remember
179 to update the log there and then, knowing that the script will
182 Cc: Their Name <email>
183 This copies a single patch to another email address.
185 Various other tags are silently removed, like these Chrome OS and
196 Exercise for the reader: Try adding some tags to one of your current
197 patch series and see how the patches turn out.
200 Where Patches Are Sent
201 ======================
203 Once the patches are created, patman sends them using git send-email. The
204 whole series is sent to the recipients in Series-to: and Series-cc.
205 You can Cc individual patches to other people with the Cc: tag. Tags in the
206 subject are also picked up to Cc patches. For example, a commit like this:
209 commit 10212537b85ff9b6e09c82045127522c0f0db981
210 Author: Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org>
211 Date: Mon Nov 7 23:18:44 2011 -0500
213 x86: arm: add a git mailrc file for maintainers
215 This should make sending out e-mails to the right people easier.
217 Cc: sandbox, mikef, ag
221 will create a patch which is copied to x86, arm, sandbox, mikef, ag and
228 The basic workflow is to create your commits, add some tags to the top
229 commit, and type 'patman' to check and send them.
231 Here is an example workflow for a series of 4 patches. Let's say you have
232 these rather contrived patches in the following order in branch us-cmd in
233 your tree where 'us' means your upstreaming activity (newest to oldest as
234 output by git log --oneline):
237 89234f5 Don't include standard parser if hush is used
238 8d640a7 mmc: sparc: Stop using builtin_run_command()
239 0c859a9 Rename run_command2() to run_command()
240 a74443f sandbox: Rename run_command() to builtin_run_command()
242 The first patch is some test things that enable your code to be compiled,
243 but that you don't want to submit because there is an existing patch for it
244 on the list. So you can tell patman to create and check some patches
245 (skipping the first patch) with:
249 If you want to do all of them including the work-in-progress one, then
250 (if you are tracking an upstream branch):
254 Let's say that patman reports an error in the second patch. Then:
257 <change 'pick' to 'edit' in 89234f5>
258 <use editor to make code changes>
260 git rebase --continue
262 Now you have an updated patch series. To check it:
266 Let's say it is now clean and you want to send it. Now you need to set up
267 the destination. So amend the top commit with:
271 Use your editor to add some tags, so that the whole commit message is:
273 The current run_command() is really only one of the options, with
274 hush providing the other. It really shouldn't be called directly
275 in case the hush parser is bring used, so rename this function to
276 better explain its purpose.
279 Series-cc: bfin, marex
282 Unified command execution in one place
284 At present two parsers have similar code to execute commands. Also
285 cmd_usage() is called all over the place. This series adds a single
286 function which processes commands called cmd_process().
289 Change-Id: Ica71a14c1f0ecb5650f771a32fecb8d2eb9d8a17
292 You want this to be an RFC and Cc the whole series to the bfin alias and
293 to Marek. Two of the patches have tags (those are the bits at the front of
294 the subject that say mmc: sparc: and sandbox:), so 8d640a7 will be Cc'd to
295 mmc and sparc, and the last one to sandbox.
297 Now to send the patches, take off the -n flag:
301 The patches will be created, shown in your editor, and then sent along with
302 the cover letter. Note that patman's tags are automatically removed so that
303 people on the list don't see your secret info.
305 Of course patches often attract comments and you need to make some updates.
306 Let's say one person sent comments and you get an Acked-by: on one patch.
307 Also, the patch on the list that you were waiting for has been merged,
308 so you can drop your wip commit. So you resync with upstream:
310 git fetch origin (or whatever upstream is called)
311 git rebase origin/master
313 and use git rebase -i to edit the commits, dropping the wip one. You add
314 the ack tag to one commit:
316 Acked-by: Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
318 update the Series-cc: in the top commit:
320 Series-cc: bfin, marex, Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
322 and remove the Series-prefix: tag since it it isn't an RFC any more. The
323 series is now version two, so the series info in the top commit looks like
327 Series-cc: bfin, marex, Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
332 Finally, you need to add a change log to the two commits you changed. You
333 add change logs to each individual commit where the changes happened, like
337 - Updated the command decoder to reduce code size
338 - Wound the torque propounder up a little more
340 (note the blank line at the end of the list)
342 When you run patman it will collect all the change logs from the different
343 commits and combine them into the cover letter, if you have one. So finally
344 you have a new series of commits:
346 faeb973 Don't include standard parser if hush is used
347 1b2f2fe mmc: sparc: Stop using builtin_run_command()
348 cfbe330 Rename run_command2() to run_command()
349 0682677 sandbox: Rename run_command() to builtin_run_command()
355 and it will create and send the version 2 series.
359 1. When you change back to the us-cmd branch days or weeks later all your
360 information is still there, safely stored in the commits. You don't need
361 to remember what version you are up to, who you sent the last lot of patches
362 to, or anything about the change logs.
364 2. If you put tags in the subject, patman will Cc the maintainers
365 automatically in many cases.
367 3. If you want to keep the commits from each series you sent so that you can
368 compare change and see what you did, you can either create a new branch for
369 each version, or just tag the branch before you start changing it:
371 git tag sent/us-cmd-rfc
373 git tag sent/us-cmd-v2
375 4. If you want to modify the patches a little before sending, you can do
376 this in your editor, but be careful!
378 5. If you want to run git send-email yourself, use the -n flag which will
379 print out the command line patman would have used.
381 6. It is a good idea to add the change log info as you change the commit,
382 not later when you can't remember which patch you changed. You can always
383 go back and change or remove logs from commits.
389 This script has been split into sensible files but still needs work.
390 Most of these are indicated by a TODO in the code.
392 It would be nice if this could handle the In-reply-to side of things.
394 The tests are incomplete, as is customary. Use the -t flag to run them,
395 and make sure you are in the tools/scripts/patman directory first:
398 $ cd tools/scripts/patman
401 Error handling doesn't always produce friendly error messages - e.g.
402 putting an incorrect tag in a commit may provide a confusing message.
404 There might be a few other features not mentioned in this README. They
405 might be bugs. In particular, tags are case sensitive which is probably
409 Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org>