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 also has some Patchwork features:
15 - shows review tags from Patchwork so you can update your local patches
16 - pulls these down into a new branch on request
17 - lists comments received on a series
19 It is intended to automate patch creation and make it a less
20 error-prone process. It is useful for U-Boot and Linux work so far,
21 since they use the checkpatch.pl script.
23 It is configured almost entirely by tags it finds in your commits.
24 This means that you can work on a number of different branches at
25 once, and keep the settings with each branch rather than having to
26 git format-patch, git send-email, etc. with the correct parameters
27 each time. So for example if you put:
29 Series-to: fred.blogs@napier.co.nz
31 in one of your commits, the series will be sent there.
33 In Linux and U-Boot this will also call get_maintainer.pl on each of your
34 patches automatically (unless you use -m to disable this).
40 This tool requires a certain way of working:
42 - Maintain a number of branches, one for each patch series you are
44 - Add tags into the commits within each branch to indicate where the
45 series should be sent, cover letter, version, etc. Most of these are
46 normally in the top commit so it is easy to change them with 'git
48 - Each branch tracks the upstream branch, so that this script can
49 automatically determine the number of commits in it (optional)
50 - Check out a branch, and run this script to create and send out your
51 patches. Weeks later, change the patches and repeat, knowing that you
52 will get a consistent result each time.
58 For most cases of using patman for U-Boot development, patman can use the
59 file 'doc/git-mailrc' in your U-Boot directory to supply the email aliases
60 you need. To make this work, tell git where to find the file by typing
63 git config sendemail.aliasesfile doc/git-mailrc
65 For both Linux and U-Boot the 'scripts/get_maintainer.pl' handles figuring
66 out where to send patches pretty well.
68 During the first run patman creates a config file for you by taking the default
69 user name and email address from the global .gitconfig file.
71 To add your own, create a file ~/.patman 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
90 If you want to avoid sending patches to email addresses that are picked up
91 by patman but are known to bounce you can add a [bounces] section to your
92 .patman file. Unlike the [alias] section these are simple key: value pairs
93 that are not recursive.
98 gonefishing: Fred Bloggs <f.bloggs@napier.net>
103 If you want to change the defaults for patman's command-line arguments,
104 you can add a [settings] section to your .patman file. This can be used
105 for any command line option by referring to the "dest" for the option in
106 patman.py. For reference, the useful ones (at the moment) shown below
107 (all with the non-default setting):
115 smtp_server: /path/to/sendmail
116 patchwork_server: https://patchwork.ozlabs.org
121 If you want to adjust settings (or aliases) that affect just a single
122 project you can add a section that looks like [project_settings] or
123 [project_alias]. If you want to use tags for your linux work, you could
139 $ ./tools/patman/patman -n
141 If it can't detect the upstream branch, try telling it how many patches
142 there are in your series:
144 $ ./tools/patman/patman -n -c5
146 This will create patch files in your current directory and tell you who
147 it is thinking of sending them to. Take a look at the patch files.
149 $ ./tools/patman/patman -n -c5 -s1
151 Similar to the above, but skip the first commit and take the next 5. This
152 is useful if your top commit is for setting up testing.
158 The most up to date version of patman can be found in the U-Boot sources.
159 However to use it on other projects it may be more convenient to install it as
160 a standalone application. A distutils installer is included, this can be used
163 $ cd tools/patman && python setup.py install
169 To make this script useful you must add tags like the following into any
170 commit. Most can only appear once in the whole series.
172 Series-to: email / alias
173 Email address / alias to send patch series to (you can add this
176 Series-cc: email / alias, ...
177 Email address / alias to Cc patch series to (you can add this
181 Sets the version number of this patch series
183 Series-prefix: prefix
184 Sets the subject prefix. Normally empty but it can be RFC for
185 RFC patches, or RESEND if you are being ignored. The patch subject
186 is like [RFC PATCH] or [RESEND PATCH].
187 In the meantime, git format.subjectprefix option will be added as
188 well. If your format.subjectprefix is set to InternalProject, then
189 the patch shows like: [InternalProject][RFC/RESEND PATCH]
192 Sets the name of the series. You don't need to have a name, and
193 patman does not yet use it, but it is convenient to put the branch
194 name here to help you keep track of multiple upstreaming efforts.
196 Series-links: [id | version:id]...
197 Set the ID of the series in patchwork. You can set this after you send
198 out the series and look in patchwork for the resulting series. The
199 URL you want is the one for the series itself, not any particular patch.
200 E.g. for http://patchwork.ozlabs.org/project/uboot/list/?series=187331
201 the series ID is 187331. This property can have a list of series IDs,
202 one for each version of the series, e.g.
204 Series-links: 1:187331 2:188434 189372
206 Patman always uses the one without a version, since it assumes this is
207 the latest one. When this tag is provided, patman can compare your local
208 branch against patchwork to see what new reviews your series has
209 collected ('patman status').
211 Series-patchwork-url: url
212 This allows specifying the Patchwork URL for a branch. This overrides
213 both the setting files and the command-line argument. The URL should
214 include the protocol and web site, with no trailing slash, for example
215 'https://patchwork.ozlabs.org/project'
218 This is the patch set title
222 Sets the cover letter contents for the series. The first line
223 will become the subject of the cover letter
225 Cover-letter-cc: email / alias
226 Additional email addresses / aliases to send cover letter to (you
227 can add this multiple times)
234 Sets some notes for the patch series, which you don't want in
235 the commit messages, but do want to send, The notes are joined
236 together and put after the cover letter. Can appear multiple
244 Similar, but for a single commit (patch). These notes will appear
245 immediately below the --- cut in the patch file.
247 Signed-off-by: Their Name <email>
248 A sign-off is added automatically to your patches (this is
249 probably a bug). If you put this tag in your patches, it will
250 override the default signoff that patman automatically adds.
251 Multiple duplicate signoffs will be removed.
253 Tested-by: Their Name <email>
254 Reviewed-by: Their Name <email>
255 Acked-by: Their Name <email>
256 These indicate that someone has tested/reviewed/acked your patch.
257 When you get this reply on the mailing list, you can add this
258 tag to the relevant commit and the script will include it when
259 you send out the next version. If 'Tested-by:' is set to
260 yourself, it will be removed. No one will believe you.
263 - Guinea pig moved into its cage
264 - Other changes ending with a blank line
266 This can appear in any commit. It lists the changes for a
267 particular version n of that commit. The change list is
268 created based on this information. Each commit gets its own
269 change list and also the whole thing is repeated in the cover
270 letter (where duplicate change lines are merged).
272 By adding your change lists into your commits it is easier to
273 keep track of what happened. When you amend a commit, remember
274 to update the log there and then, knowing that the script will
278 - This line will not appear in the cover-letter changelog
280 This tag is like Series-changes, except changes in this changelog will
281 only appear in the changelog of the commit this tag is in. This is
282 useful when you want to add notes which may not make sense in the cover
283 letter. For example, you can have short changes such as "New" or
287 - This line will only appear in the cover letter
289 This tag is like Series-changes, except changes in this changelog will
290 only appear in the cover-letter changelog. This is useful to summarize
291 changes made with Commit-changes, or to add additional context to
294 Patch-cc: Their Name <email>
295 This copies a single patch to another email address. Note that the
296 Cc: used by git send-email is ignored by patman, but will be
297 interpreted by git send-email if you use it.
299 Series-process-log: sort, uniq
300 This tells patman to sort and/or uniq the change logs. Changes may be
301 multiple lines long, as long as each subsequent line of a change begins
302 with a whitespace character. For example,
305 continues onto the next line
306 - But this change is separate
308 Use 'sort' to sort the entries, and 'uniq' to include only
309 unique entries. If omitted, no change log processing is done.
310 Separate each tag with a comma.
313 This tag is stripped out but is used to generate the Message-Id
314 of the emails that will be sent. When you keep the Change-Id the
315 same you are asserting that this is a slightly different version
316 (but logically the same patch) as other patches that have been
317 sent out with the same Change-Id.
319 Various other tags are silently removed, like these Chrome OS and
326 Commit-xxxx: (except Commit-notes)
328 Exercise for the reader: Try adding some tags to one of your current
329 patch series and see how the patches turn out.
332 Where Patches Are Sent
333 ======================
335 Once the patches are created, patman sends them using git send-email. The
336 whole series is sent to the recipients in Series-to: and Series-cc.
337 You can Cc individual patches to other people with the Patch-cc: tag. Tags
338 in the subject are also picked up to Cc patches. For example, a commit like
342 commit 10212537b85ff9b6e09c82045127522c0f0db981
343 Author: Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org>
344 Date: Mon Nov 7 23:18:44 2011 -0500
346 x86: arm: add a git mailrc file for maintainers
348 This should make sending out e-mails to the right people easier.
350 Patch-cc: sandbox, mikef, ag
354 will create a patch which is copied to x86, arm, sandbox, mikef, ag and
357 If you have a cover letter it will get sent to the union of the Patch-cc
358 lists of all of the other patches. If you want to sent it to additional
359 people you can add a tag:
361 Cover-letter-cc: <list of addresses>
363 These people will get the cover letter even if they are not on the To/Cc
364 list for any of the patches.
367 Patchwork Integration
368 =====================
370 Patman has a very basic integration with Patchwork. If you point patman to
371 your series on patchwork it can show you what new reviews have appears since
372 you sent your series.
374 To set this up, add a Series-link tag to one of the commits in your series
381 and patman will show you each patch and what review tags have been collected,
385 21 x86: mtrr: Update the command to use the new mtrr
386 Reviewed-by: Wolfgang Wallner <wolfgang.wallner@br-automation.com>
387 + Reviewed-by: Bin Meng <bmeng.cn@gmail.com>
388 22 x86: mtrr: Restructure so command execution is in
389 Reviewed-by: Wolfgang Wallner <wolfgang.wallner@br-automation.com>
390 + Reviewed-by: Bin Meng <bmeng.cn@gmail.com>
393 This shows that patch 21 and 22 were sent out with one review but have since
394 attracted another review each. If the series needs changes, you can update
395 these commits with the new review tag before sending the next version of the
398 To automatically pull into these tags into a new branch, use the -d option:
400 patman status -d mtrr4
402 This will create a new 'mtrr4' branch which is the same as your current branch
403 but has the new review tags in it. The tags are added in alphabetic order and
404 are placed immediately after any existing ack/review/test/fixes tags, or at the
405 end. You can check that this worked with:
407 patman -b mtrr4 status
409 which should show that there are no new responses compared to this new branch.
411 There is also a -C option to list the comments received for each patch.
417 The basic workflow is to create your commits, add some tags to the top
418 commit, and type 'patman' to check and send them.
420 Here is an example workflow for a series of 4 patches. Let's say you have
421 these rather contrived patches in the following order in branch us-cmd in
422 your tree where 'us' means your upstreaming activity (newest to oldest as
423 output by git log --oneline):
426 89234f5 Don't include standard parser if hush is used
427 8d640a7 mmc: sparc: Stop using builtin_run_command()
428 0c859a9 Rename run_command2() to run_command()
429 a74443f sandbox: Rename run_command() to builtin_run_command()
431 The first patch is some test things that enable your code to be compiled,
432 but that you don't want to submit because there is an existing patch for it
433 on the list. So you can tell patman to create and check some patches
434 (skipping the first patch) with:
438 If you want to do all of them including the work-in-progress one, then
439 (if you are tracking an upstream branch):
443 Let's say that patman reports an error in the second patch. Then:
446 <change 'pick' to 'edit' in 89234f5>
447 <use editor to make code changes>
449 git rebase --continue
451 Now you have an updated patch series. To check it:
455 Let's say it is now clean and you want to send it. Now you need to set up
456 the destination. So amend the top commit with:
460 Use your editor to add some tags, so that the whole commit message is:
462 The current run_command() is really only one of the options, with
463 hush providing the other. It really shouldn't be called directly
464 in case the hush parser is bring used, so rename this function to
465 better explain its purpose.
468 Series-cc: bfin, marex
471 Unified command execution in one place
473 At present two parsers have similar code to execute commands. Also
474 cmd_usage() is called all over the place. This series adds a single
475 function which processes commands called cmd_process().
478 Change-Id: Ica71a14c1f0ecb5650f771a32fecb8d2eb9d8a17
481 You want this to be an RFC and Cc the whole series to the bfin alias and
482 to Marek. Two of the patches have tags (those are the bits at the front of
483 the subject that say mmc: sparc: and sandbox:), so 8d640a7 will be Cc'd to
484 mmc and sparc, and the last one to sandbox.
486 Now to send the patches, take off the -n flag:
490 The patches will be created, shown in your editor, and then sent along with
491 the cover letter. Note that patman's tags are automatically removed so that
492 people on the list don't see your secret info.
494 Of course patches often attract comments and you need to make some updates.
495 Let's say one person sent comments and you get an Acked-by: on one patch.
496 Also, the patch on the list that you were waiting for has been merged,
497 so you can drop your wip commit.
499 Take a look on patchwork and find out the URL of the series. This will be
500 something like http://patchwork.ozlabs.org/project/uboot/list/?series=187331
501 Add this to a tag in your top commit:
503 Series-link: http://patchwork.ozlabs.org/project/uboot/list/?series=187331
505 You can use then patman to collect the Acked-by tag to the correct commit,
506 creating a new 'version 2' branch for us-cmd:
508 patman status -d us-cmd2
511 You can look at the comments in Patchwork or with:
515 Then you can resync with upstream:
517 git fetch origin (or whatever upstream is called)
518 git rebase origin/master
520 and use git rebase -i to edit the commits, dropping the wip one.
522 Then update the Series-cc: in the top commit to add the person who reviewed
525 Series-cc: bfin, marex, Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
527 and remove the Series-prefix: tag since it it isn't an RFC any more. The
528 series is now version two, so the series info in the top commit looks like
532 Series-cc: bfin, marex, Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
537 Finally, you need to add a change log to the two commits you changed. You
538 add change logs to each individual commit where the changes happened, like
542 - Updated the command decoder to reduce code size
543 - Wound the torque propounder up a little more
545 (note the blank line at the end of the list)
547 When you run patman it will collect all the change logs from the different
548 commits and combine them into the cover letter, if you have one. So finally
549 you have a new series of commits:
551 faeb973 Don't include standard parser if hush is used
552 1b2f2fe mmc: sparc: Stop using builtin_run_command()
553 cfbe330 Rename run_command2() to run_command()
554 0682677 sandbox: Rename run_command() to builtin_run_command()
560 and it will create and send the version 2 series.
566 1. When you change back to the us-cmd branch days or weeks later all your
567 information is still there, safely stored in the commits. You don't need
568 to remember what version you are up to, who you sent the last lot of patches
569 to, or anything about the change logs.
571 2. If you put tags in the subject, patman will Cc the maintainers
572 automatically in many cases.
574 3. If you want to keep the commits from each series you sent so that you can
575 compare change and see what you did, you can either create a new branch for
576 each version, or just tag the branch before you start changing it:
578 git tag sent/us-cmd-rfc
580 git tag sent/us-cmd-v2
582 4. If you want to modify the patches a little before sending, you can do
583 this in your editor, but be careful!
585 5. If you want to run git send-email yourself, use the -n flag which will
586 print out the command line patman would have used.
588 6. It is a good idea to add the change log info as you change the commit,
589 not later when you can't remember which patch you changed. You can always
590 go back and change or remove logs from commits.
592 7. Some mailing lists have size limits and when we add binary contents to
593 our patches it's easy to exceed the size limits. Use "--no-binary" to
594 generate patches without any binary contents. You are supposed to include
595 a link to a git repository in your "Commit-notes", "Series-notes" or
596 "Cover-letter" for maintainers to fetch the original commit.
598 8. Patches will have no changelog entries for revisions where they did not
599 change. For clarity, if there are no changes for this patch in the most
600 recent revision of the series, a note will be added. For example, a patch
601 with the following tags in the commit
610 would have a changelog of
612 (no changes since v4)
623 This script has been split into sensible files but still needs work.
624 Most of these are indicated by a TODO in the code.
626 It would be nice if this could handle the In-reply-to side of things.
628 The tests are incomplete, as is customary. Use the 'test' subcommand to run
631 $ tools/patman/patman test
633 Error handling doesn't always produce friendly error messages - e.g.
634 putting an incorrect tag in a commit may provide a confusing message.
636 There might be a few other features not mentioned in this README. They
637 might be bugs. In particular, tags are case sensitive which is probably
641 Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org>
644 revised v4 Independence Day 2020, with Patchwork integration