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.
46 In Linux this will also call get_maintainer.pl on each of your
47 patches automatically.
53 This tool requires a certain way of working:
55 - Maintain a number of branches, one for each patch series you are
57 - Add tags into the commits within each branch to indicate where the
58 series should be sent, cover letter, version, etc. Most of these are
59 normally in the top commit so it is easy to change them with 'git
61 - Each branch tracks the upstream branch, so that this script can
62 automatically determine the number of commits in it (optional)
63 - Check out a branch, and run this script to create and send out your
64 patches. Weeks later, change the patches and repeat, knowing that you
65 will get a consistent result each time.
71 For most cases of using patman for U-Boot developement patman will
72 locate and use the file 'doc/git-mailrc' in your U-Boot directory.
73 This contains most of the aliases you will need.
75 For Linux the 'scripts/get_maintainer.pl' handles figuring out where
76 to send patches pretty well.
78 During the first run patman creates a config file for you by taking the default
79 user name and email address from the global .gitconfig file.
81 To add your own, create a file ~/.patman like this:
87 me: Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org>
89 u-boot: U-Boot Mailing List <u-boot@lists.denx.de>
90 wolfgang: Wolfgang Denk <wd@denx.de>
91 others: Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org>, Fred Bloggs <f.bloggs@napier.net>
95 Aliases are recursive.
97 The checkpatch.pl in the U-Boot tools/ subdirectory will be located and
98 used. Failing that you can put it into your path or ~/bin/checkpatch.pl
106 $ ./tools/patman/patman -n
108 If it can't detect the upstream branch, try telling it how many patches
109 there are in your series:
111 $ ./tools/patman/patman -n -c5
113 This will create patch files in your current directory and tell you who
114 it is thinking of sending them to. Take a look at the patch files.
116 $ ./tools/patman/patman -n -c5 -s1
118 Similar to the above, but skip the first commit and take the next 5. This
119 is useful if your top commit is for setting up testing.
125 To make this script useful you must add tags like the following into any
126 commit. Most can only appear once in the whole series.
128 Series-to: email / alias
129 Email address / alias to send patch series to (you can add this
132 Series-cc: email / alias, ...
133 Email address / alias to Cc patch series to (you can add this
137 Sets the version number of this patch series
139 Series-prefix: prefix
140 Sets the subject prefix. Normally empty but it can be RFC for
141 RFC patches, or RESEND if you are being ignored.
144 Sets the name of the series. You don't need to have a name, and
145 patman does not yet use it, but it is convenient to put the branch
146 name here to help you keep track of multiple upstreaming efforts.
149 This is the patch set title
153 Sets the cover letter contents for the series. The first line
154 will become the subject of the cover letter
161 Sets some notes for the patch series, which you don't want in
162 the commit messages, but do want to send, The notes are joined
163 together and put after the cover letter. Can appear multiple
166 Signed-off-by: Their Name <email>
167 A sign-off is added automatically to your patches (this is
168 probably a bug). If you put this tag in your patches, it will
169 override the default signoff that patman automatically adds.
171 Tested-by: Their Name <email>
172 Acked-by: Their Name <email>
173 These indicate that someone has acked or tested your patch.
174 When you get this reply on the mailing list, you can add this
175 tag to the relevant commit and the script will include it when
176 you send out the next version. If 'Tested-by:' is set to
177 yourself, it will be removed. No one will believe you.
180 - Guinea pig moved into its cage
181 - Other changes ending with a blank line
183 This can appear in any commit. It lists the changes for a
184 particular version n of that commit. The change list is
185 created based on this information. Each commit gets its own
186 change list and also the whole thing is repeated in the cover
187 letter (where duplicate change lines are merged).
189 By adding your change lists into your commits it is easier to
190 keep track of what happened. When you amend a commit, remember
191 to update the log there and then, knowing that the script will
194 Cc: Their Name <email>
195 This copies a single patch to another email address.
197 Various other tags are silently removed, like these Chrome OS and
208 Exercise for the reader: Try adding some tags to one of your current
209 patch series and see how the patches turn out.
212 Where Patches Are Sent
213 ======================
215 Once the patches are created, patman sends them using git send-email. The
216 whole series is sent to the recipients in Series-to: and Series-cc.
217 You can Cc individual patches to other people with the Cc: tag. Tags in the
218 subject are also picked up to Cc patches. For example, a commit like this:
221 commit 10212537b85ff9b6e09c82045127522c0f0db981
222 Author: Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org>
223 Date: Mon Nov 7 23:18:44 2011 -0500
225 x86: arm: add a git mailrc file for maintainers
227 This should make sending out e-mails to the right people easier.
229 Cc: sandbox, mikef, ag
233 will create a patch which is copied to x86, arm, sandbox, mikef, ag and
236 If you have a cover letter it will get sent to the union of the CC lists of
237 all of the other patches.
243 The basic workflow is to create your commits, add some tags to the top
244 commit, and type 'patman' to check and send them.
246 Here is an example workflow for a series of 4 patches. Let's say you have
247 these rather contrived patches in the following order in branch us-cmd in
248 your tree where 'us' means your upstreaming activity (newest to oldest as
249 output by git log --oneline):
252 89234f5 Don't include standard parser if hush is used
253 8d640a7 mmc: sparc: Stop using builtin_run_command()
254 0c859a9 Rename run_command2() to run_command()
255 a74443f sandbox: Rename run_command() to builtin_run_command()
257 The first patch is some test things that enable your code to be compiled,
258 but that you don't want to submit because there is an existing patch for it
259 on the list. So you can tell patman to create and check some patches
260 (skipping the first patch) with:
264 If you want to do all of them including the work-in-progress one, then
265 (if you are tracking an upstream branch):
269 Let's say that patman reports an error in the second patch. Then:
272 <change 'pick' to 'edit' in 89234f5>
273 <use editor to make code changes>
275 git rebase --continue
277 Now you have an updated patch series. To check it:
281 Let's say it is now clean and you want to send it. Now you need to set up
282 the destination. So amend the top commit with:
286 Use your editor to add some tags, so that the whole commit message is:
288 The current run_command() is really only one of the options, with
289 hush providing the other. It really shouldn't be called directly
290 in case the hush parser is bring used, so rename this function to
291 better explain its purpose.
294 Series-cc: bfin, marex
297 Unified command execution in one place
299 At present two parsers have similar code to execute commands. Also
300 cmd_usage() is called all over the place. This series adds a single
301 function which processes commands called cmd_process().
304 Change-Id: Ica71a14c1f0ecb5650f771a32fecb8d2eb9d8a17
307 You want this to be an RFC and Cc the whole series to the bfin alias and
308 to Marek. Two of the patches have tags (those are the bits at the front of
309 the subject that say mmc: sparc: and sandbox:), so 8d640a7 will be Cc'd to
310 mmc and sparc, and the last one to sandbox.
312 Now to send the patches, take off the -n flag:
316 The patches will be created, shown in your editor, and then sent along with
317 the cover letter. Note that patman's tags are automatically removed so that
318 people on the list don't see your secret info.
320 Of course patches often attract comments and you need to make some updates.
321 Let's say one person sent comments and you get an Acked-by: on one patch.
322 Also, the patch on the list that you were waiting for has been merged,
323 so you can drop your wip commit. So you resync with upstream:
325 git fetch origin (or whatever upstream is called)
326 git rebase origin/master
328 and use git rebase -i to edit the commits, dropping the wip one. You add
329 the ack tag to one commit:
331 Acked-by: Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
333 update the Series-cc: in the top commit:
335 Series-cc: bfin, marex, Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
337 and remove the Series-prefix: tag since it it isn't an RFC any more. The
338 series is now version two, so the series info in the top commit looks like
342 Series-cc: bfin, marex, Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
347 Finally, you need to add a change log to the two commits you changed. You
348 add change logs to each individual commit where the changes happened, like
352 - Updated the command decoder to reduce code size
353 - Wound the torque propounder up a little more
355 (note the blank line at the end of the list)
357 When you run patman it will collect all the change logs from the different
358 commits and combine them into the cover letter, if you have one. So finally
359 you have a new series of commits:
361 faeb973 Don't include standard parser if hush is used
362 1b2f2fe mmc: sparc: Stop using builtin_run_command()
363 cfbe330 Rename run_command2() to run_command()
364 0682677 sandbox: Rename run_command() to builtin_run_command()
370 and it will create and send the version 2 series.
374 1. When you change back to the us-cmd branch days or weeks later all your
375 information is still there, safely stored in the commits. You don't need
376 to remember what version you are up to, who you sent the last lot of patches
377 to, or anything about the change logs.
379 2. If you put tags in the subject, patman will Cc the maintainers
380 automatically in many cases.
382 3. If you want to keep the commits from each series you sent so that you can
383 compare change and see what you did, you can either create a new branch for
384 each version, or just tag the branch before you start changing it:
386 git tag sent/us-cmd-rfc
388 git tag sent/us-cmd-v2
390 4. If you want to modify the patches a little before sending, you can do
391 this in your editor, but be careful!
393 5. If you want to run git send-email yourself, use the -n flag which will
394 print out the command line patman would have used.
396 6. It is a good idea to add the change log info as you change the commit,
397 not later when you can't remember which patch you changed. You can always
398 go back and change or remove logs from commits.
404 This script has been split into sensible files but still needs work.
405 Most of these are indicated by a TODO in the code.
407 It would be nice if this could handle the In-reply-to side of things.
409 The tests are incomplete, as is customary. Use the -t flag to run them,
410 and make sure you are in the tools/scripts/patman directory first:
413 $ cd tools/scripts/patman
416 Error handling doesn't always produce friendly error messages - e.g.
417 putting an incorrect tag in a commit may provide a confusing message.
419 There might be a few other features not mentioned in this README. They
420 might be bugs. In particular, tags are case sensitive which is probably
424 Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org>