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):
117 If you want to adjust settings (or aliases) that affect just a single
118 project you can add a section that looks like [project_settings] or
119 [project_alias]. If you want to use tags for your linux work, you could
135 $ ./tools/patman/patman -n
137 If it can't detect the upstream branch, try telling it how many patches
138 there are in your series:
140 $ ./tools/patman/patman -n -c5
142 This will create patch files in your current directory and tell you who
143 it is thinking of sending them to. Take a look at the patch files.
145 $ ./tools/patman/patman -n -c5 -s1
147 Similar to the above, but skip the first commit and take the next 5. This
148 is useful if your top commit is for setting up testing.
154 To make this script useful you must add tags like the following into any
155 commit. Most can only appear once in the whole series.
157 Series-to: email / alias
158 Email address / alias to send patch series to (you can add this
161 Series-cc: email / alias, ...
162 Email address / alias to Cc patch series to (you can add this
166 Sets the version number of this patch series
168 Series-prefix: prefix
169 Sets the subject prefix. Normally empty but it can be RFC for
170 RFC patches, or RESEND if you are being ignored.
173 Sets the name of the series. You don't need to have a name, and
174 patman does not yet use it, but it is convenient to put the branch
175 name here to help you keep track of multiple upstreaming efforts.
178 This is the patch set title
182 Sets the cover letter contents for the series. The first line
183 will become the subject of the cover letter
190 Sets some notes for the patch series, which you don't want in
191 the commit messages, but do want to send, The notes are joined
192 together and put after the cover letter. Can appear multiple
195 Signed-off-by: Their Name <email>
196 A sign-off is added automatically to your patches (this is
197 probably a bug). If you put this tag in your patches, it will
198 override the default signoff that patman automatically adds.
200 Tested-by: Their Name <email>
201 Acked-by: Their Name <email>
202 These indicate that someone has acked or tested your patch.
203 When you get this reply on the mailing list, you can add this
204 tag to the relevant commit and the script will include it when
205 you send out the next version. If 'Tested-by:' is set to
206 yourself, it will be removed. No one will believe you.
209 - Guinea pig moved into its cage
210 - Other changes ending with a blank line
212 This can appear in any commit. It lists the changes for a
213 particular version n of that commit. The change list is
214 created based on this information. Each commit gets its own
215 change list and also the whole thing is repeated in the cover
216 letter (where duplicate change lines are merged).
218 By adding your change lists into your commits it is easier to
219 keep track of what happened. When you amend a commit, remember
220 to update the log there and then, knowing that the script will
223 Cc: Their Name <email>
224 This copies a single patch to another email address.
226 Various other tags are silently removed, like these Chrome OS and
237 Exercise for the reader: Try adding some tags to one of your current
238 patch series and see how the patches turn out.
241 Where Patches Are Sent
242 ======================
244 Once the patches are created, patman sends them using git send-email. The
245 whole series is sent to the recipients in Series-to: and Series-cc.
246 You can Cc individual patches to other people with the Cc: tag. Tags in the
247 subject are also picked up to Cc patches. For example, a commit like this:
250 commit 10212537b85ff9b6e09c82045127522c0f0db981
251 Author: Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org>
252 Date: Mon Nov 7 23:18:44 2011 -0500
254 x86: arm: add a git mailrc file for maintainers
256 This should make sending out e-mails to the right people easier.
258 Cc: sandbox, mikef, ag
262 will create a patch which is copied to x86, arm, sandbox, mikef, ag and
265 If you have a cover letter it will get sent to the union of the CC lists of
266 all of the other patches.
272 The basic workflow is to create your commits, add some tags to the top
273 commit, and type 'patman' to check and send them.
275 Here is an example workflow for a series of 4 patches. Let's say you have
276 these rather contrived patches in the following order in branch us-cmd in
277 your tree where 'us' means your upstreaming activity (newest to oldest as
278 output by git log --oneline):
281 89234f5 Don't include standard parser if hush is used
282 8d640a7 mmc: sparc: Stop using builtin_run_command()
283 0c859a9 Rename run_command2() to run_command()
284 a74443f sandbox: Rename run_command() to builtin_run_command()
286 The first patch is some test things that enable your code to be compiled,
287 but that you don't want to submit because there is an existing patch for it
288 on the list. So you can tell patman to create and check some patches
289 (skipping the first patch) with:
293 If you want to do all of them including the work-in-progress one, then
294 (if you are tracking an upstream branch):
298 Let's say that patman reports an error in the second patch. Then:
301 <change 'pick' to 'edit' in 89234f5>
302 <use editor to make code changes>
304 git rebase --continue
306 Now you have an updated patch series. To check it:
310 Let's say it is now clean and you want to send it. Now you need to set up
311 the destination. So amend the top commit with:
315 Use your editor to add some tags, so that the whole commit message is:
317 The current run_command() is really only one of the options, with
318 hush providing the other. It really shouldn't be called directly
319 in case the hush parser is bring used, so rename this function to
320 better explain its purpose.
323 Series-cc: bfin, marex
326 Unified command execution in one place
328 At present two parsers have similar code to execute commands. Also
329 cmd_usage() is called all over the place. This series adds a single
330 function which processes commands called cmd_process().
333 Change-Id: Ica71a14c1f0ecb5650f771a32fecb8d2eb9d8a17
336 You want this to be an RFC and Cc the whole series to the bfin alias and
337 to Marek. Two of the patches have tags (those are the bits at the front of
338 the subject that say mmc: sparc: and sandbox:), so 8d640a7 will be Cc'd to
339 mmc and sparc, and the last one to sandbox.
341 Now to send the patches, take off the -n flag:
345 The patches will be created, shown in your editor, and then sent along with
346 the cover letter. Note that patman's tags are automatically removed so that
347 people on the list don't see your secret info.
349 Of course patches often attract comments and you need to make some updates.
350 Let's say one person sent comments and you get an Acked-by: on one patch.
351 Also, the patch on the list that you were waiting for has been merged,
352 so you can drop your wip commit. So you resync with upstream:
354 git fetch origin (or whatever upstream is called)
355 git rebase origin/master
357 and use git rebase -i to edit the commits, dropping the wip one. You add
358 the ack tag to one commit:
360 Acked-by: Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
362 update the Series-cc: in the top commit:
364 Series-cc: bfin, marex, Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
366 and remove the Series-prefix: tag since it it isn't an RFC any more. The
367 series is now version two, so the series info in the top commit looks like
371 Series-cc: bfin, marex, Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
376 Finally, you need to add a change log to the two commits you changed. You
377 add change logs to each individual commit where the changes happened, like
381 - Updated the command decoder to reduce code size
382 - Wound the torque propounder up a little more
384 (note the blank line at the end of the list)
386 When you run patman it will collect all the change logs from the different
387 commits and combine them into the cover letter, if you have one. So finally
388 you have a new series of commits:
390 faeb973 Don't include standard parser if hush is used
391 1b2f2fe mmc: sparc: Stop using builtin_run_command()
392 cfbe330 Rename run_command2() to run_command()
393 0682677 sandbox: Rename run_command() to builtin_run_command()
399 and it will create and send the version 2 series.
403 1. When you change back to the us-cmd branch days or weeks later all your
404 information is still there, safely stored in the commits. You don't need
405 to remember what version you are up to, who you sent the last lot of patches
406 to, or anything about the change logs.
408 2. If you put tags in the subject, patman will Cc the maintainers
409 automatically in many cases.
411 3. If you want to keep the commits from each series you sent so that you can
412 compare change and see what you did, you can either create a new branch for
413 each version, or just tag the branch before you start changing it:
415 git tag sent/us-cmd-rfc
417 git tag sent/us-cmd-v2
419 4. If you want to modify the patches a little before sending, you can do
420 this in your editor, but be careful!
422 5. If you want to run git send-email yourself, use the -n flag which will
423 print out the command line patman would have used.
425 6. It is a good idea to add the change log info as you change the commit,
426 not later when you can't remember which patch you changed. You can always
427 go back and change or remove logs from commits.
433 This script has been split into sensible files but still needs work.
434 Most of these are indicated by a TODO in the code.
436 It would be nice if this could handle the In-reply-to side of things.
438 The tests are incomplete, as is customary. Use the -t flag to run them,
439 and make sure you are in the tools/scripts/patman directory first:
442 $ cd tools/scripts/patman
445 Error handling doesn't always produce friendly error messages - e.g.
446 putting an incorrect tag in a commit may provide a confusing message.
448 There might be a few other features not mentioned in this README. They
449 might be bugs. In particular, tags are case sensitive which is probably
453 Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org>