1 # Copyright (c) 2011 The Chromium OS Authors.
3 # SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0+
9 This tool is a Python script which:
10 - Creates patch directly from your branch
11 - Cleans them up by removing unwanted tags
12 - Inserts a cover letter with change lists
13 - Runs the patches through checkpatch.pl and its own checks
14 - Optionally emails them out to selected people
16 It is intended to automate patch creation and make it a less
17 error-prone process. It is useful for U-Boot and Linux work so far,
18 since it uses the checkpatch.pl script.
20 It is configured almost entirely by tags it finds in your commits.
21 This means that you can work on a number of different branches at
22 once, and keep the settings with each branch rather than having to
23 git format-patch, git send-email, etc. with the correct parameters
24 each time. So for example if you put:
26 Series-to: fred.blogs@napier.co.nz
28 in one of your commits, the series will be sent there.
30 In Linux this will also call get_maintainer.pl on each of your
31 patches automatically.
37 This tool requires a certain way of working:
39 - Maintain a number of branches, one for each patch series you are
41 - Add tags into the commits within each branch to indicate where the
42 series should be sent, cover letter, version, etc. Most of these are
43 normally in the top commit so it is easy to change them with 'git
45 - Each branch tracks the upstream branch, so that this script can
46 automatically determine the number of commits in it (optional)
47 - Check out a branch, and run this script to create and send out your
48 patches. Weeks later, change the patches and repeat, knowing that you
49 will get a consistent result each time.
55 For most cases of using patman for U-Boot development, patman will
56 locate and use the file 'doc/git-mailrc' in your U-Boot directory.
57 This contains most of the aliases you will need.
59 For Linux the 'scripts/get_maintainer.pl' handles figuring out where
60 to send patches pretty well.
62 During the first run patman creates a config file for you by taking the default
63 user name and email address from the global .gitconfig file.
65 To add your own, create a file ~/.patman like this:
71 me: Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org>
73 u-boot: U-Boot Mailing List <u-boot@lists.denx.de>
74 wolfgang: Wolfgang Denk <wd@denx.de>
75 others: Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org>, Fred Bloggs <f.bloggs@napier.net>
79 Aliases are recursive.
81 The checkpatch.pl in the U-Boot tools/ subdirectory will be located and
82 used. Failing that you can put it into your path or ~/bin/checkpatch.pl
85 If you want to change the defaults for patman's command-line arguments,
86 you can add a [settings] section to your .patman file. This can be used
87 for any command line option by referring to the "dest" for the option in
88 patman.py. For reference, the useful ones (at the moment) shown below
89 (all with the non-default setting):
101 If you want to adjust settings (or aliases) that affect just a single
102 project you can add a section that looks like [project_settings] or
103 [project_alias]. If you want to use tags for your linux work, you could
119 $ ./tools/patman/patman -n
121 If it can't detect the upstream branch, try telling it how many patches
122 there are in your series:
124 $ ./tools/patman/patman -n -c5
126 This will create patch files in your current directory and tell you who
127 it is thinking of sending them to. Take a look at the patch files.
129 $ ./tools/patman/patman -n -c5 -s1
131 Similar to the above, but skip the first commit and take the next 5. This
132 is useful if your top commit is for setting up testing.
138 To make this script useful you must add tags like the following into any
139 commit. Most can only appear once in the whole series.
141 Series-to: email / alias
142 Email address / alias to send patch series to (you can add this
145 Series-cc: email / alias, ...
146 Email address / alias to Cc patch series to (you can add this
150 Sets the version number of this patch series
152 Series-prefix: prefix
153 Sets the subject prefix. Normally empty but it can be RFC for
154 RFC patches, or RESEND if you are being ignored.
157 Sets the name of the series. You don't need to have a name, and
158 patman does not yet use it, but it is convenient to put the branch
159 name here to help you keep track of multiple upstreaming efforts.
162 This is the patch set title
166 Sets the cover letter contents for the series. The first line
167 will become the subject of the cover letter
169 Cover-letter-cc: email / alias
170 Additional email addresses / aliases to send cover letter to (you
171 can add this multiple times)
178 Sets some notes for the patch series, which you don't want in
179 the commit messages, but do want to send, The notes are joined
180 together and put after the cover letter. Can appear multiple
188 Similar, but for a single commit (patch). These notes will appear
189 immediately below the --- cut in the patch file.
191 Signed-off-by: Their Name <email>
192 A sign-off is added automatically to your patches (this is
193 probably a bug). If you put this tag in your patches, it will
194 override the default signoff that patman automatically adds.
196 Tested-by: Their Name <email>
197 Reviewed-by: Their Name <email>
198 Acked-by: Their Name <email>
199 These indicate that someone has tested/reviewed/acked your patch.
200 When you get this reply on the mailing list, you can add this
201 tag to the relevant commit and the script will include it when
202 you send out the next version. If 'Tested-by:' is set to
203 yourself, it will be removed. No one will believe you.
206 - Guinea pig moved into its cage
207 - Other changes ending with a blank line
209 This can appear in any commit. It lists the changes for a
210 particular version n of that commit. The change list is
211 created based on this information. Each commit gets its own
212 change list and also the whole thing is repeated in the cover
213 letter (where duplicate change lines are merged).
215 By adding your change lists into your commits it is easier to
216 keep track of what happened. When you amend a commit, remember
217 to update the log there and then, knowing that the script will
220 Patch-cc: Their Name <email>
221 This copies a single patch to another email address. Note that the
222 Cc: used by git send-email is ignored by patman, but will be
223 interpreted by git send-email if you use it.
225 Series-process-log: sort, uniq
226 This tells patman to sort and/or uniq the change logs. It is
227 assumed that each change log entry is only a single line long.
228 Use 'sort' to sort the entries, and 'uniq' to include only
229 unique entries. If omitted, no change log processing is done.
230 Separate each tag with a comma.
232 Various other tags are silently removed, like these Chrome OS and
240 Commit-xxxx: (except Commit-notes)
242 Exercise for the reader: Try adding some tags to one of your current
243 patch series and see how the patches turn out.
246 Where Patches Are Sent
247 ======================
249 Once the patches are created, patman sends them using git send-email. The
250 whole series is sent to the recipients in Series-to: and Series-cc.
251 You can Cc individual patches to other people with the Patch-cc: tag. Tags
252 in the subject are also picked up to Cc patches. For example, a commit like
256 commit 10212537b85ff9b6e09c82045127522c0f0db981
257 Author: Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org>
258 Date: Mon Nov 7 23:18:44 2011 -0500
260 x86: arm: add a git mailrc file for maintainers
262 This should make sending out e-mails to the right people easier.
264 Patch-cc: sandbox, mikef, ag
268 will create a patch which is copied to x86, arm, sandbox, mikef, ag and
271 If you have a cover letter it will get sent to the union of the Patch-cc
272 lists of all of the other patches. If you want to sent it to additional
273 people you can add a tag:
275 Cover-letter-cc: <list of addresses>
277 These people will get the cover letter even if they are not on the To/Cc
278 list for any of the patches.
284 The basic workflow is to create your commits, add some tags to the top
285 commit, and type 'patman' to check and send them.
287 Here is an example workflow for a series of 4 patches. Let's say you have
288 these rather contrived patches in the following order in branch us-cmd in
289 your tree where 'us' means your upstreaming activity (newest to oldest as
290 output by git log --oneline):
293 89234f5 Don't include standard parser if hush is used
294 8d640a7 mmc: sparc: Stop using builtin_run_command()
295 0c859a9 Rename run_command2() to run_command()
296 a74443f sandbox: Rename run_command() to builtin_run_command()
298 The first patch is some test things that enable your code to be compiled,
299 but that you don't want to submit because there is an existing patch for it
300 on the list. So you can tell patman to create and check some patches
301 (skipping the first patch) with:
305 If you want to do all of them including the work-in-progress one, then
306 (if you are tracking an upstream branch):
310 Let's say that patman reports an error in the second patch. Then:
313 <change 'pick' to 'edit' in 89234f5>
314 <use editor to make code changes>
316 git rebase --continue
318 Now you have an updated patch series. To check it:
322 Let's say it is now clean and you want to send it. Now you need to set up
323 the destination. So amend the top commit with:
327 Use your editor to add some tags, so that the whole commit message is:
329 The current run_command() is really only one of the options, with
330 hush providing the other. It really shouldn't be called directly
331 in case the hush parser is bring used, so rename this function to
332 better explain its purpose.
335 Series-cc: bfin, marex
338 Unified command execution in one place
340 At present two parsers have similar code to execute commands. Also
341 cmd_usage() is called all over the place. This series adds a single
342 function which processes commands called cmd_process().
345 Change-Id: Ica71a14c1f0ecb5650f771a32fecb8d2eb9d8a17
348 You want this to be an RFC and Cc the whole series to the bfin alias and
349 to Marek. Two of the patches have tags (those are the bits at the front of
350 the subject that say mmc: sparc: and sandbox:), so 8d640a7 will be Cc'd to
351 mmc and sparc, and the last one to sandbox.
353 Now to send the patches, take off the -n flag:
357 The patches will be created, shown in your editor, and then sent along with
358 the cover letter. Note that patman's tags are automatically removed so that
359 people on the list don't see your secret info.
361 Of course patches often attract comments and you need to make some updates.
362 Let's say one person sent comments and you get an Acked-by: on one patch.
363 Also, the patch on the list that you were waiting for has been merged,
364 so you can drop your wip commit. So you resync with upstream:
366 git fetch origin (or whatever upstream is called)
367 git rebase origin/master
369 and use git rebase -i to edit the commits, dropping the wip one. You add
370 the ack tag to one commit:
372 Acked-by: Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
374 update the Series-cc: in the top commit:
376 Series-cc: bfin, marex, Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
378 and remove the Series-prefix: tag since it it isn't an RFC any more. The
379 series is now version two, so the series info in the top commit looks like
383 Series-cc: bfin, marex, Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
388 Finally, you need to add a change log to the two commits you changed. You
389 add change logs to each individual commit where the changes happened, like
393 - Updated the command decoder to reduce code size
394 - Wound the torque propounder up a little more
396 (note the blank line at the end of the list)
398 When you run patman it will collect all the change logs from the different
399 commits and combine them into the cover letter, if you have one. So finally
400 you have a new series of commits:
402 faeb973 Don't include standard parser if hush is used
403 1b2f2fe mmc: sparc: Stop using builtin_run_command()
404 cfbe330 Rename run_command2() to run_command()
405 0682677 sandbox: Rename run_command() to builtin_run_command()
411 and it will create and send the version 2 series.
415 1. When you change back to the us-cmd branch days or weeks later all your
416 information is still there, safely stored in the commits. You don't need
417 to remember what version you are up to, who you sent the last lot of patches
418 to, or anything about the change logs.
420 2. If you put tags in the subject, patman will Cc the maintainers
421 automatically in many cases.
423 3. If you want to keep the commits from each series you sent so that you can
424 compare change and see what you did, you can either create a new branch for
425 each version, or just tag the branch before you start changing it:
427 git tag sent/us-cmd-rfc
429 git tag sent/us-cmd-v2
431 4. If you want to modify the patches a little before sending, you can do
432 this in your editor, but be careful!
434 5. If you want to run git send-email yourself, use the -n flag which will
435 print out the command line patman would have used.
437 6. It is a good idea to add the change log info as you change the commit,
438 not later when you can't remember which patch you changed. You can always
439 go back and change or remove logs from commits.
445 This script has been split into sensible files but still needs work.
446 Most of these are indicated by a TODO in the code.
448 It would be nice if this could handle the In-reply-to side of things.
450 The tests are incomplete, as is customary. Use the --test flag to run them,
451 and make sure you are in the tools/patman directory first:
457 Error handling doesn't always produce friendly error messages - e.g.
458 putting an incorrect tag in a commit may provide a confusing message.
460 There might be a few other features not mentioned in this README. They
461 might be bugs. In particular, tags are case sensitive which is probably
465 Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org>