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
183 Signed-off-by: Their Name <email>
184 A sign-off is added automatically to your patches (this is
185 probably a bug). If you put this tag in your patches, it will
186 override the default signoff that patman automatically adds.
188 Tested-by: Their Name <email>
189 Reviewed-by: Their Name <email>
190 Acked-by: Their Name <email>
191 These indicate that someone has tested/reviewed/acked your patch.
192 When you get this reply on the mailing list, you can add this
193 tag to the relevant commit and the script will include it when
194 you send out the next version. If 'Tested-by:' is set to
195 yourself, it will be removed. No one will believe you.
198 - Guinea pig moved into its cage
199 - Other changes ending with a blank line
201 This can appear in any commit. It lists the changes for a
202 particular version n of that commit. The change list is
203 created based on this information. Each commit gets its own
204 change list and also the whole thing is repeated in the cover
205 letter (where duplicate change lines are merged).
207 By adding your change lists into your commits it is easier to
208 keep track of what happened. When you amend a commit, remember
209 to update the log there and then, knowing that the script will
212 Cc: Their Name <email>
213 This copies a single patch to another email address.
215 Series-process-log: sort, uniq
216 This tells patman to sort and/or uniq the change logs. It is
217 assumed that each change log entry is only a single line long.
218 Use 'sort' to sort the entries, and 'uniq' to include only
219 unique entries. If omitted, no change log processing is done.
220 Separate each tag with a comma.
222 Various other tags are silently removed, like these Chrome OS and
232 Exercise for the reader: Try adding some tags to one of your current
233 patch series and see how the patches turn out.
236 Where Patches Are Sent
237 ======================
239 Once the patches are created, patman sends them using git send-email. The
240 whole series is sent to the recipients in Series-to: and Series-cc.
241 You can Cc individual patches to other people with the Cc: tag. Tags in the
242 subject are also picked up to Cc patches. For example, a commit like this:
245 commit 10212537b85ff9b6e09c82045127522c0f0db981
246 Author: Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org>
247 Date: Mon Nov 7 23:18:44 2011 -0500
249 x86: arm: add a git mailrc file for maintainers
251 This should make sending out e-mails to the right people easier.
253 Cc: sandbox, mikef, ag
257 will create a patch which is copied to x86, arm, sandbox, mikef, ag and
260 If you have a cover letter it will get sent to the union of the CC lists of
261 all of the other patches. If you want to sent it to additional people you
264 Cover-letter-cc: <list of addresses>
266 These people will get the cover letter even if they are not on the To/Cc
267 list for any of the patches.
273 The basic workflow is to create your commits, add some tags to the top
274 commit, and type 'patman' to check and send them.
276 Here is an example workflow for a series of 4 patches. Let's say you have
277 these rather contrived patches in the following order in branch us-cmd in
278 your tree where 'us' means your upstreaming activity (newest to oldest as
279 output by git log --oneline):
282 89234f5 Don't include standard parser if hush is used
283 8d640a7 mmc: sparc: Stop using builtin_run_command()
284 0c859a9 Rename run_command2() to run_command()
285 a74443f sandbox: Rename run_command() to builtin_run_command()
287 The first patch is some test things that enable your code to be compiled,
288 but that you don't want to submit because there is an existing patch for it
289 on the list. So you can tell patman to create and check some patches
290 (skipping the first patch) with:
294 If you want to do all of them including the work-in-progress one, then
295 (if you are tracking an upstream branch):
299 Let's say that patman reports an error in the second patch. Then:
302 <change 'pick' to 'edit' in 89234f5>
303 <use editor to make code changes>
305 git rebase --continue
307 Now you have an updated patch series. To check it:
311 Let's say it is now clean and you want to send it. Now you need to set up
312 the destination. So amend the top commit with:
316 Use your editor to add some tags, so that the whole commit message is:
318 The current run_command() is really only one of the options, with
319 hush providing the other. It really shouldn't be called directly
320 in case the hush parser is bring used, so rename this function to
321 better explain its purpose.
324 Series-cc: bfin, marex
327 Unified command execution in one place
329 At present two parsers have similar code to execute commands. Also
330 cmd_usage() is called all over the place. This series adds a single
331 function which processes commands called cmd_process().
334 Change-Id: Ica71a14c1f0ecb5650f771a32fecb8d2eb9d8a17
337 You want this to be an RFC and Cc the whole series to the bfin alias and
338 to Marek. Two of the patches have tags (those are the bits at the front of
339 the subject that say mmc: sparc: and sandbox:), so 8d640a7 will be Cc'd to
340 mmc and sparc, and the last one to sandbox.
342 Now to send the patches, take off the -n flag:
346 The patches will be created, shown in your editor, and then sent along with
347 the cover letter. Note that patman's tags are automatically removed so that
348 people on the list don't see your secret info.
350 Of course patches often attract comments and you need to make some updates.
351 Let's say one person sent comments and you get an Acked-by: on one patch.
352 Also, the patch on the list that you were waiting for has been merged,
353 so you can drop your wip commit. So you resync with upstream:
355 git fetch origin (or whatever upstream is called)
356 git rebase origin/master
358 and use git rebase -i to edit the commits, dropping the wip one. You add
359 the ack tag to one commit:
361 Acked-by: Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
363 update the Series-cc: in the top commit:
365 Series-cc: bfin, marex, Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
367 and remove the Series-prefix: tag since it it isn't an RFC any more. The
368 series is now version two, so the series info in the top commit looks like
372 Series-cc: bfin, marex, Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
377 Finally, you need to add a change log to the two commits you changed. You
378 add change logs to each individual commit where the changes happened, like
382 - Updated the command decoder to reduce code size
383 - Wound the torque propounder up a little more
385 (note the blank line at the end of the list)
387 When you run patman it will collect all the change logs from the different
388 commits and combine them into the cover letter, if you have one. So finally
389 you have a new series of commits:
391 faeb973 Don't include standard parser if hush is used
392 1b2f2fe mmc: sparc: Stop using builtin_run_command()
393 cfbe330 Rename run_command2() to run_command()
394 0682677 sandbox: Rename run_command() to builtin_run_command()
400 and it will create and send the version 2 series.
404 1. When you change back to the us-cmd branch days or weeks later all your
405 information is still there, safely stored in the commits. You don't need
406 to remember what version you are up to, who you sent the last lot of patches
407 to, or anything about the change logs.
409 2. If you put tags in the subject, patman will Cc the maintainers
410 automatically in many cases.
412 3. If you want to keep the commits from each series you sent so that you can
413 compare change and see what you did, you can either create a new branch for
414 each version, or just tag the branch before you start changing it:
416 git tag sent/us-cmd-rfc
418 git tag sent/us-cmd-v2
420 4. If you want to modify the patches a little before sending, you can do
421 this in your editor, but be careful!
423 5. If you want to run git send-email yourself, use the -n flag which will
424 print out the command line patman would have used.
426 6. It is a good idea to add the change log info as you change the commit,
427 not later when you can't remember which patch you changed. You can always
428 go back and change or remove logs from commits.
434 This script has been split into sensible files but still needs work.
435 Most of these are indicated by a TODO in the code.
437 It would be nice if this could handle the In-reply-to side of things.
439 The tests are incomplete, as is customary. Use the --test flag to run them,
440 and make sure you are in the tools/patman directory first:
446 Error handling doesn't always produce friendly error messages - e.g.
447 putting an incorrect tag in a commit may provide a confusing message.
449 There might be a few other features not mentioned in this README. They
450 might be bugs. In particular, tags are case sensitive which is probably
454 Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org>