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 is intended to automate patch creation and make it a less
15 error-prone process. It is useful for U-Boot and Linux work so far,
16 since it uses the checkpatch.pl script.
18 It is configured almost entirely by tags it finds in your commits.
19 This means that you can work on a number of different branches at
20 once, and keep the settings with each branch rather than having to
21 git format-patch, git send-email, etc. with the correct parameters
22 each time. So for example if you put:
24 Series-to: fred.blogs@napier.co.nz
26 in one of your commits, the series will be sent there.
28 In Linux and U-Boot this will also call get_maintainer.pl on each of your
29 patches automatically (unless you use -m to disable this).
35 This tool requires a certain way of working:
37 - Maintain a number of branches, one for each patch series you are
39 - Add tags into the commits within each branch to indicate where the
40 series should be sent, cover letter, version, etc. Most of these are
41 normally in the top commit so it is easy to change them with 'git
43 - Each branch tracks the upstream branch, so that this script can
44 automatically determine the number of commits in it (optional)
45 - Check out a branch, and run this script to create and send out your
46 patches. Weeks later, change the patches and repeat, knowing that you
47 will get a consistent result each time.
53 For most cases of using patman for U-Boot development, patman can use the
54 file 'doc/git-mailrc' in your U-Boot directory to supply the email aliases
55 you need. To make this work, tell git where to find the file by typing
58 git config sendemail.aliasesfile doc/git-mailrc
60 For both Linux and U-Boot the 'scripts/get_maintainer.pl' handles figuring
61 out where to send patches pretty well.
63 During the first run patman creates a config file for you by taking the default
64 user name and email address from the global .gitconfig file.
66 To add your own, create a file ~/.patman like this:
72 me: Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org>
74 u-boot: U-Boot Mailing List <u-boot@lists.denx.de>
75 wolfgang: Wolfgang Denk <wd@denx.de>
76 others: Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org>, Fred Bloggs <f.bloggs@napier.net>
80 Aliases are recursive.
82 The checkpatch.pl in the U-Boot tools/ subdirectory will be located and
83 used. Failing that you can put it into your path or ~/bin/checkpatch.pl
85 If you want to avoid sending patches to email addresses that are picked up
86 by patman but are known to bounce you can add a [bounces] section to your
87 .patman file. Unlike the [alias] section these are simple key: value pairs
88 that are not recursive.
93 gonefishing: Fred Bloggs <f.bloggs@napier.net>
98 If you want to change the defaults for patman's command-line arguments,
99 you can add a [settings] section to your .patman file. This can be used
100 for any command line option by referring to the "dest" for the option in
101 patman.py. For reference, the useful ones (at the moment) shown below
102 (all with the non-default setting):
110 smtp_server: /path/to/sendmail
115 If you want to adjust settings (or aliases) that affect just a single
116 project you can add a section that looks like [project_settings] or
117 [project_alias]. If you want to use tags for your linux work, you could
133 $ ./tools/patman/patman -n
135 If it can't detect the upstream branch, try telling it how many patches
136 there are in your series:
138 $ ./tools/patman/patman -n -c5
140 This will create patch files in your current directory and tell you who
141 it is thinking of sending them to. Take a look at the patch files.
143 $ ./tools/patman/patman -n -c5 -s1
145 Similar to the above, but skip the first commit and take the next 5. This
146 is useful if your top commit is for setting up testing.
152 The most up to date version of patman can be found in the U-Boot sources.
153 However to use it on other projects it may be more convenient to install it as
154 a standalone application. A distutils installer is included, this can be used
157 $ cd tools/patman && python setup.py install
163 To make this script useful you must add tags like the following into any
164 commit. Most can only appear once in the whole series.
166 Series-to: email / alias
167 Email address / alias to send patch series to (you can add this
170 Series-cc: email / alias, ...
171 Email address / alias to Cc patch series to (you can add this
175 Sets the version number of this patch series
177 Series-prefix: prefix
178 Sets the subject prefix. Normally empty but it can be RFC for
179 RFC patches, or RESEND if you are being ignored. The patch subject
180 is like [RFC PATCH] or [RESEND PATCH].
181 In the meantime, git format.subjectprefix option will be added as
182 well. If your format.subjectprefix is set to InternalProject, then
183 the patch shows like: [InternalProject][RFC/RESEND PATCH]
186 Sets the name of the series. You don't need to have a name, and
187 patman does not yet use it, but it is convenient to put the branch
188 name here to help you keep track of multiple upstreaming efforts.
191 This is the patch set title
195 Sets the cover letter contents for the series. The first line
196 will become the subject of the cover letter
198 Cover-letter-cc: email / alias
199 Additional email addresses / aliases to send cover letter to (you
200 can add this multiple times)
207 Sets some notes for the patch series, which you don't want in
208 the commit messages, but do want to send, The notes are joined
209 together and put after the cover letter. Can appear multiple
217 Similar, but for a single commit (patch). These notes will appear
218 immediately below the --- cut in the patch file.
220 Signed-off-by: Their Name <email>
221 A sign-off is added automatically to your patches (this is
222 probably a bug). If you put this tag in your patches, it will
223 override the default signoff that patman automatically adds.
224 Multiple duplicate signoffs will be removed.
226 Tested-by: Their Name <email>
227 Reviewed-by: Their Name <email>
228 Acked-by: Their Name <email>
229 These indicate that someone has tested/reviewed/acked your patch.
230 When you get this reply on the mailing list, you can add this
231 tag to the relevant commit and the script will include it when
232 you send out the next version. If 'Tested-by:' is set to
233 yourself, it will be removed. No one will believe you.
236 - Guinea pig moved into its cage
237 - Other changes ending with a blank line
239 This can appear in any commit. It lists the changes for a
240 particular version n of that commit. The change list is
241 created based on this information. Each commit gets its own
242 change list and also the whole thing is repeated in the cover
243 letter (where duplicate change lines are merged).
245 By adding your change lists into your commits it is easier to
246 keep track of what happened. When you amend a commit, remember
247 to update the log there and then, knowing that the script will
250 Patch-cc: Their Name <email>
251 This copies a single patch to another email address. Note that the
252 Cc: used by git send-email is ignored by patman, but will be
253 interpreted by git send-email if you use it.
255 Series-process-log: sort, uniq
256 This tells patman to sort and/or uniq the change logs. It is
257 assumed that each change log entry is only a single line long.
258 Use 'sort' to sort the entries, and 'uniq' to include only
259 unique entries. If omitted, no change log processing is done.
260 Separate each tag with a comma.
262 Various other tags are silently removed, like these Chrome OS and
270 Commit-xxxx: (except Commit-notes)
272 Exercise for the reader: Try adding some tags to one of your current
273 patch series and see how the patches turn out.
276 Where Patches Are Sent
277 ======================
279 Once the patches are created, patman sends them using git send-email. The
280 whole series is sent to the recipients in Series-to: and Series-cc.
281 You can Cc individual patches to other people with the Patch-cc: tag. Tags
282 in the subject are also picked up to Cc patches. For example, a commit like
286 commit 10212537b85ff9b6e09c82045127522c0f0db981
287 Author: Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org>
288 Date: Mon Nov 7 23:18:44 2011 -0500
290 x86: arm: add a git mailrc file for maintainers
292 This should make sending out e-mails to the right people easier.
294 Patch-cc: sandbox, mikef, ag
298 will create a patch which is copied to x86, arm, sandbox, mikef, ag and
301 If you have a cover letter it will get sent to the union of the Patch-cc
302 lists of all of the other patches. If you want to sent it to additional
303 people you can add a tag:
305 Cover-letter-cc: <list of addresses>
307 These people will get the cover letter even if they are not on the To/Cc
308 list for any of the patches.
314 The basic workflow is to create your commits, add some tags to the top
315 commit, and type 'patman' to check and send them.
317 Here is an example workflow for a series of 4 patches. Let's say you have
318 these rather contrived patches in the following order in branch us-cmd in
319 your tree where 'us' means your upstreaming activity (newest to oldest as
320 output by git log --oneline):
323 89234f5 Don't include standard parser if hush is used
324 8d640a7 mmc: sparc: Stop using builtin_run_command()
325 0c859a9 Rename run_command2() to run_command()
326 a74443f sandbox: Rename run_command() to builtin_run_command()
328 The first patch is some test things that enable your code to be compiled,
329 but that you don't want to submit because there is an existing patch for it
330 on the list. So you can tell patman to create and check some patches
331 (skipping the first patch) with:
335 If you want to do all of them including the work-in-progress one, then
336 (if you are tracking an upstream branch):
340 Let's say that patman reports an error in the second patch. Then:
343 <change 'pick' to 'edit' in 89234f5>
344 <use editor to make code changes>
346 git rebase --continue
348 Now you have an updated patch series. To check it:
352 Let's say it is now clean and you want to send it. Now you need to set up
353 the destination. So amend the top commit with:
357 Use your editor to add some tags, so that the whole commit message is:
359 The current run_command() is really only one of the options, with
360 hush providing the other. It really shouldn't be called directly
361 in case the hush parser is bring used, so rename this function to
362 better explain its purpose.
365 Series-cc: bfin, marex
368 Unified command execution in one place
370 At present two parsers have similar code to execute commands. Also
371 cmd_usage() is called all over the place. This series adds a single
372 function which processes commands called cmd_process().
375 Change-Id: Ica71a14c1f0ecb5650f771a32fecb8d2eb9d8a17
378 You want this to be an RFC and Cc the whole series to the bfin alias and
379 to Marek. Two of the patches have tags (those are the bits at the front of
380 the subject that say mmc: sparc: and sandbox:), so 8d640a7 will be Cc'd to
381 mmc and sparc, and the last one to sandbox.
383 Now to send the patches, take off the -n flag:
387 The patches will be created, shown in your editor, and then sent along with
388 the cover letter. Note that patman's tags are automatically removed so that
389 people on the list don't see your secret info.
391 Of course patches often attract comments and you need to make some updates.
392 Let's say one person sent comments and you get an Acked-by: on one patch.
393 Also, the patch on the list that you were waiting for has been merged,
394 so you can drop your wip commit. So you resync with upstream:
396 git fetch origin (or whatever upstream is called)
397 git rebase origin/master
399 and use git rebase -i to edit the commits, dropping the wip one. You add
400 the ack tag to one commit:
402 Acked-by: Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
404 update the Series-cc: in the top commit:
406 Series-cc: bfin, marex, Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
408 and remove the Series-prefix: tag since it it isn't an RFC any more. The
409 series is now version two, so the series info in the top commit looks like
413 Series-cc: bfin, marex, Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
418 Finally, you need to add a change log to the two commits you changed. You
419 add change logs to each individual commit where the changes happened, like
423 - Updated the command decoder to reduce code size
424 - Wound the torque propounder up a little more
426 (note the blank line at the end of the list)
428 When you run patman it will collect all the change logs from the different
429 commits and combine them into the cover letter, if you have one. So finally
430 you have a new series of commits:
432 faeb973 Don't include standard parser if hush is used
433 1b2f2fe mmc: sparc: Stop using builtin_run_command()
434 cfbe330 Rename run_command2() to run_command()
435 0682677 sandbox: Rename run_command() to builtin_run_command()
441 and it will create and send the version 2 series.
445 1. When you change back to the us-cmd branch days or weeks later all your
446 information is still there, safely stored in the commits. You don't need
447 to remember what version you are up to, who you sent the last lot of patches
448 to, or anything about the change logs.
450 2. If you put tags in the subject, patman will Cc the maintainers
451 automatically in many cases.
453 3. If you want to keep the commits from each series you sent so that you can
454 compare change and see what you did, you can either create a new branch for
455 each version, or just tag the branch before you start changing it:
457 git tag sent/us-cmd-rfc
459 git tag sent/us-cmd-v2
461 4. If you want to modify the patches a little before sending, you can do
462 this in your editor, but be careful!
464 5. If you want to run git send-email yourself, use the -n flag which will
465 print out the command line patman would have used.
467 6. It is a good idea to add the change log info as you change the commit,
468 not later when you can't remember which patch you changed. You can always
469 go back and change or remove logs from commits.
475 This script has been split into sensible files but still needs work.
476 Most of these are indicated by a TODO in the code.
478 It would be nice if this could handle the In-reply-to side of things.
480 The tests are incomplete, as is customary. Use the --test flag to run them,
481 and make sure you are in the tools/patman directory first:
487 Error handling doesn't always produce friendly error messages - e.g.
488 putting an incorrect tag in a commit may provide a confusing message.
490 There might be a few other features not mentioned in this README. They
491 might be bugs. In particular, tags are case sensitive which is probably
495 Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org>