patman: Add a few more helpers to the tools library

[oweals/u-boot.git] / tools / patman / README

diff --git a/tools/patman/README b/tools/patman/README
index e466886ed2428416824e40f8d0faa529248ff4e4..7917fc8bdc33204187c7b3d276eafc184824cd97 100644 (file)
--- a/tools/patman/README
+++ b/tools/patman/README
@@ -1,7 +1,5 @@
+# SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0+
 # Copyright (c) 2011 The Chromium OS Authors.
-#
-# SPDX-License-Identifier:     GPL-2.0+
-#
 
 What is this?
 =============
@@ -52,12 +50,15 @@ will get a consistent result each time.
 How to configure it
 ===================
 
-For most cases of using patman for U-Boot development, patman will
-locate and use the file 'doc/git-mailrc' in your U-Boot directory.
-This contains most of the aliases you will need.
+For most cases of using patman for U-Boot development, patman can use the
+file 'doc/git-mailrc' in your U-Boot directory to supply the email aliases
+you need. To make this work, tell git where to find the file by typing
+this once:
 
-For Linux the 'scripts/get_maintainer.pl' handles figuring out where
-to send patches pretty well.
+    git config sendemail.aliasesfile doc/git-mailrc
+
+For both Linux and U-Boot the 'scripts/get_maintainer.pl' handles figuring
+out where to send patches pretty well.
 
 During the first run patman creates a config file for you by taking the default
 user name and email address from the global .gitconfig file.
@@ -81,6 +82,18 @@ Aliases are recursive.
 The checkpatch.pl in the U-Boot tools/ subdirectory will be located and
 used. Failing that you can put it into your path or ~/bin/checkpatch.pl
 
+If you want to avoid sending patches to email addresses that are picked up
+by patman but are known to bounce you can add a [bounces] section to your
+.patman file. Unlike the [alias] section these are simple key: value pairs
+that are not recursive.
+
+>>>
+
+[bounces]
+gonefishing: Fred Bloggs <f.bloggs@napier.net>
+
+<<<
+
 
 If you want to change the defaults for patman's command-line arguments,
 you can add a [settings] section to your .patman file.  This can be used
@@ -94,6 +107,7 @@ patman.py.  For reference, the useful ones (at the moment) shown below
 ignore_errors: True
 process_tags: False
 verbose: True
+smtp_server: /path/to/sendmail
 
 <<<
 
@@ -132,6 +146,17 @@ Similar to the above, but skip the first commit and take the next 5. This
 is useful if your top commit is for setting up testing.
 
 
+How to install it
+=================
+
+The most up to date version of patman can be found in the U-Boot sources.
+However to use it on other projects it may be more convenient to install it as
+a standalone application. A distutils installer is included, this can be used
+to install patman:
+
+$ cd tools/patman && python setup.py install
+
+
 How to add tags
 ===============
 
@@ -151,7 +176,11 @@ Series-version: n
 
 Series-prefix: prefix
        Sets the subject prefix. Normally empty but it can be RFC for
-       RFC patches, or RESEND if you are being ignored.
+       RFC patches, or RESEND if you are being ignored. The patch subject
+       is like [RFC PATCH] or [RESEND PATCH].
+       In the meantime, git format.subjectprefix option will be added as
+       well. If your format.subjectprefix is set to InternalProject, then
+       the patch shows like: [InternalProject][RFC/RESEND PATCH]
 
 Series-name: name
        Sets the name of the series. You don't need to have a name, and