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
101 If you want to change the defaults for patman's command-line arguments,
102 you can add a [settings] section to your .patman file. This can be used
103 for any command line option by referring to the "dest" for the option in
104 patman.py. For reference, the useful ones (at the moment) shown below
105 (all with the non-default setting):
122 $ ./tools/patman/patman -n
124 If it can't detect the upstream branch, try telling it how many patches
125 there are in your series:
127 $ ./tools/patman/patman -n -c5
129 This will create patch files in your current directory and tell you who
130 it is thinking of sending them to. Take a look at the patch files.
132 $ ./tools/patman/patman -n -c5 -s1
134 Similar to the above, but skip the first commit and take the next 5. This
135 is useful if your top commit is for setting up testing.
141 To make this script useful you must add tags like the following into any
142 commit. Most can only appear once in the whole series.
144 Series-to: email / alias
145 Email address / alias to send patch series to (you can add this
148 Series-cc: email / alias, ...
149 Email address / alias to Cc patch series to (you can add this
153 Sets the version number of this patch series
155 Series-prefix: prefix
156 Sets the subject prefix. Normally empty but it can be RFC for
157 RFC patches, or RESEND if you are being ignored.
160 Sets the name of the series. You don't need to have a name, and
161 patman does not yet use it, but it is convenient to put the branch
162 name here to help you keep track of multiple upstreaming efforts.
165 This is the patch set title
169 Sets the cover letter contents for the series. The first line
170 will become the subject of the cover letter
177 Sets some notes for the patch series, which you don't want in
178 the commit messages, but do want to send, The notes are joined
179 together and put after the cover letter. Can appear multiple
182 Signed-off-by: Their Name <email>
183 A sign-off is added automatically to your patches (this is
184 probably a bug). If you put this tag in your patches, it will
185 override the default signoff that patman automatically adds.
187 Tested-by: Their Name <email>
188 Acked-by: Their Name <email>
189 These indicate that someone has acked or tested your patch.
190 When you get this reply on the mailing list, you can add this
191 tag to the relevant commit and the script will include it when
192 you send out the next version. If 'Tested-by:' is set to
193 yourself, it will be removed. No one will believe you.
196 - Guinea pig moved into its cage
197 - Other changes ending with a blank line
199 This can appear in any commit. It lists the changes for a
200 particular version n of that commit. The change list is
201 created based on this information. Each commit gets its own
202 change list and also the whole thing is repeated in the cover
203 letter (where duplicate change lines are merged).
205 By adding your change lists into your commits it is easier to
206 keep track of what happened. When you amend a commit, remember
207 to update the log there and then, knowing that the script will
210 Cc: Their Name <email>
211 This copies a single patch to another email address.
213 Various other tags are silently removed, like these Chrome OS and
224 Exercise for the reader: Try adding some tags to one of your current
225 patch series and see how the patches turn out.
228 Where Patches Are Sent
229 ======================
231 Once the patches are created, patman sends them using git send-email. The
232 whole series is sent to the recipients in Series-to: and Series-cc.
233 You can Cc individual patches to other people with the Cc: tag. Tags in the
234 subject are also picked up to Cc patches. For example, a commit like this:
237 commit 10212537b85ff9b6e09c82045127522c0f0db981
238 Author: Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org>
239 Date: Mon Nov 7 23:18:44 2011 -0500
241 x86: arm: add a git mailrc file for maintainers
243 This should make sending out e-mails to the right people easier.
245 Cc: sandbox, mikef, ag
249 will create a patch which is copied to x86, arm, sandbox, mikef, ag and
252 If you have a cover letter it will get sent to the union of the CC lists of
253 all of the other patches.
259 The basic workflow is to create your commits, add some tags to the top
260 commit, and type 'patman' to check and send them.
262 Here is an example workflow for a series of 4 patches. Let's say you have
263 these rather contrived patches in the following order in branch us-cmd in
264 your tree where 'us' means your upstreaming activity (newest to oldest as
265 output by git log --oneline):
268 89234f5 Don't include standard parser if hush is used
269 8d640a7 mmc: sparc: Stop using builtin_run_command()
270 0c859a9 Rename run_command2() to run_command()
271 a74443f sandbox: Rename run_command() to builtin_run_command()
273 The first patch is some test things that enable your code to be compiled,
274 but that you don't want to submit because there is an existing patch for it
275 on the list. So you can tell patman to create and check some patches
276 (skipping the first patch) with:
280 If you want to do all of them including the work-in-progress one, then
281 (if you are tracking an upstream branch):
285 Let's say that patman reports an error in the second patch. Then:
288 <change 'pick' to 'edit' in 89234f5>
289 <use editor to make code changes>
291 git rebase --continue
293 Now you have an updated patch series. To check it:
297 Let's say it is now clean and you want to send it. Now you need to set up
298 the destination. So amend the top commit with:
302 Use your editor to add some tags, so that the whole commit message is:
304 The current run_command() is really only one of the options, with
305 hush providing the other. It really shouldn't be called directly
306 in case the hush parser is bring used, so rename this function to
307 better explain its purpose.
310 Series-cc: bfin, marex
313 Unified command execution in one place
315 At present two parsers have similar code to execute commands. Also
316 cmd_usage() is called all over the place. This series adds a single
317 function which processes commands called cmd_process().
320 Change-Id: Ica71a14c1f0ecb5650f771a32fecb8d2eb9d8a17
323 You want this to be an RFC and Cc the whole series to the bfin alias and
324 to Marek. Two of the patches have tags (those are the bits at the front of
325 the subject that say mmc: sparc: and sandbox:), so 8d640a7 will be Cc'd to
326 mmc and sparc, and the last one to sandbox.
328 Now to send the patches, take off the -n flag:
332 The patches will be created, shown in your editor, and then sent along with
333 the cover letter. Note that patman's tags are automatically removed so that
334 people on the list don't see your secret info.
336 Of course patches often attract comments and you need to make some updates.
337 Let's say one person sent comments and you get an Acked-by: on one patch.
338 Also, the patch on the list that you were waiting for has been merged,
339 so you can drop your wip commit. So you resync with upstream:
341 git fetch origin (or whatever upstream is called)
342 git rebase origin/master
344 and use git rebase -i to edit the commits, dropping the wip one. You add
345 the ack tag to one commit:
347 Acked-by: Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
349 update the Series-cc: in the top commit:
351 Series-cc: bfin, marex, Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
353 and remove the Series-prefix: tag since it it isn't an RFC any more. The
354 series is now version two, so the series info in the top commit looks like
358 Series-cc: bfin, marex, Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
363 Finally, you need to add a change log to the two commits you changed. You
364 add change logs to each individual commit where the changes happened, like
368 - Updated the command decoder to reduce code size
369 - Wound the torque propounder up a little more
371 (note the blank line at the end of the list)
373 When you run patman it will collect all the change logs from the different
374 commits and combine them into the cover letter, if you have one. So finally
375 you have a new series of commits:
377 faeb973 Don't include standard parser if hush is used
378 1b2f2fe mmc: sparc: Stop using builtin_run_command()
379 cfbe330 Rename run_command2() to run_command()
380 0682677 sandbox: Rename run_command() to builtin_run_command()
386 and it will create and send the version 2 series.
390 1. When you change back to the us-cmd branch days or weeks later all your
391 information is still there, safely stored in the commits. You don't need
392 to remember what version you are up to, who you sent the last lot of patches
393 to, or anything about the change logs.
395 2. If you put tags in the subject, patman will Cc the maintainers
396 automatically in many cases.
398 3. If you want to keep the commits from each series you sent so that you can
399 compare change and see what you did, you can either create a new branch for
400 each version, or just tag the branch before you start changing it:
402 git tag sent/us-cmd-rfc
404 git tag sent/us-cmd-v2
406 4. If you want to modify the patches a little before sending, you can do
407 this in your editor, but be careful!
409 5. If you want to run git send-email yourself, use the -n flag which will
410 print out the command line patman would have used.
412 6. It is a good idea to add the change log info as you change the commit,
413 not later when you can't remember which patch you changed. You can always
414 go back and change or remove logs from commits.
420 This script has been split into sensible files but still needs work.
421 Most of these are indicated by a TODO in the code.
423 It would be nice if this could handle the In-reply-to side of things.
425 The tests are incomplete, as is customary. Use the -t flag to run them,
426 and make sure you are in the tools/scripts/patman directory first:
429 $ cd tools/scripts/patman
432 Error handling doesn't always produce friendly error messages - e.g.
433 putting an incorrect tag in a commit may provide a confusing message.
435 There might be a few other features not mentioned in this README. They
436 might be bugs. In particular, tags are case sensitive which is probably
440 Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org>