Documentation / git-am.txton commit Avoid using non-portable `echo -n` in tests. (6ecfd91)
   1git-am(1)
   2=========
   3
   4NAME
   5----
   6git-am - Apply a series of patches from a mailbox
   7
   8
   9SYNOPSIS
  10--------
  11[verse]
  12'git am' [--signoff] [--keep] [--utf8 | --no-utf8]
  13         [--3way] [--interactive]
  14         [--whitespace=<option>] [-C<n>] [-p<n>]
  15         [<mbox> | <Maildir>...]
  16'git am' (--skip | --resolved | --abort)
  17
  18DESCRIPTION
  19-----------
  20Splits mail messages in a mailbox into commit log message,
  21authorship information and patches, and applies them to the
  22current branch.
  23
  24OPTIONS
  25-------
  26<mbox>|<Maildir>...::
  27        The list of mailbox files to read patches from. If you do not
  28        supply this argument, reads from the standard input. If you supply
  29        directories, they'll be treated as Maildirs.
  30
  31-s::
  32--signoff::
  33        Add `Signed-off-by:` line to the commit message, using
  34        the committer identity of yourself.
  35
  36-k::
  37--keep::
  38        Pass `-k` flag to 'git-mailinfo' (see linkgit:git-mailinfo[1]).
  39
  40-u::
  41--utf8::
  42        Pass `-u` flag to 'git-mailinfo' (see linkgit:git-mailinfo[1]).
  43        The proposed commit log message taken from the e-mail
  44        is re-coded into UTF-8 encoding (configuration variable
  45        `i18n.commitencoding` can be used to specify project's
  46        preferred encoding if it is not UTF-8).
  47+
  48This was optional in prior versions of git, but now it is the
  49default.   You could use `--no-utf8` to override this.
  50
  51--no-utf8::
  52        Pass `-n` flag to 'git-mailinfo' (see
  53        linkgit:git-mailinfo[1]).
  54
  55-3::
  56--3way::
  57        When the patch does not apply cleanly, fall back on
  58        3-way merge, if the patch records the identity of blobs
  59        it is supposed to apply to, and we have those blobs
  60        available locally.
  61
  62--whitespace=<option>::
  63        This flag is passed to the 'git-apply' (see linkgit:git-apply[1])
  64        program that applies
  65        the patch.
  66
  67-C<n>::
  68-p<n>::
  69        These flags are passed to the 'git-apply' (see linkgit:git-apply[1])
  70        program that applies
  71        the patch.
  72
  73-i::
  74--interactive::
  75        Run interactively.
  76
  77--skip::
  78        Skip the current patch.  This is only meaningful when
  79        restarting an aborted patch.
  80
  81-r::
  82--resolved::
  83        After a patch failure (e.g. attempting to apply
  84        conflicting patch), the user has applied it by hand and
  85        the index file stores the result of the application.
  86        Make a commit using the authorship and commit log
  87        extracted from the e-mail message and the current index
  88        file, and continue.
  89
  90--resolvemsg=<msg>::
  91        When a patch failure occurs, <msg> will be printed
  92        to the screen before exiting.  This overrides the
  93        standard message informing you to use `--resolved`
  94        or `--skip` to handle the failure.  This is solely
  95        for internal use between 'git-rebase' and 'git-am'.
  96
  97--abort::
  98        Restore the original branch and abort the patching operation.
  99
 100DISCUSSION
 101----------
 102
 103The commit author name is taken from the "From: " line of the
 104message, and commit author time is taken from the "Date: " line
 105of the message.  The "Subject: " line is used as the title of
 106the commit, after stripping common prefix "[PATCH <anything>]".
 107It is supposed to describe what the commit is about concisely as
 108a one line text.
 109
 110The body of the message (iow, after a blank line that terminates
 111RFC2822 headers) can begin with "Subject: " and "From: " lines
 112that are different from those of the mail header, to override
 113the values of these fields.
 114
 115The commit message is formed by the title taken from the
 116"Subject: ", a blank line and the body of the message up to
 117where the patch begins.  Excess whitespaces at the end of the
 118lines are automatically stripped.
 119
 120The patch is expected to be inline, directly following the
 121message.  Any line that is of form:
 122
 123* three-dashes and end-of-line, or
 124* a line that begins with "diff -", or
 125* a line that begins with "Index: "
 126
 127is taken as the beginning of a patch, and the commit log message
 128is terminated before the first occurrence of such a line.
 129
 130When initially invoking it, you give it names of the mailboxes
 131to crunch.  Upon seeing the first patch that does not apply, it
 132aborts in the middle,.  You can recover from this in one of two ways:
 133
 134. skip the current patch by re-running the command with '--skip'
 135  option.
 136
 137. hand resolve the conflict in the working directory, and update
 138  the index file to bring it in a state that the patch should
 139  have produced.  Then run the command with '--resolved' option.
 140
 141The command refuses to process new mailboxes while `.git/rebase-apply`
 142directory exists, so if you decide to start over from scratch,
 143run `rm -f -r .git/rebase-apply` before running the command with mailbox
 144names.
 145
 146Before any patches are applied, ORIG_HEAD is set to the tip of the
 147current branch.  This is useful if you have problems with multiple
 148commits, like running 'git am' on the wrong branch or an error in the
 149commits that is more easily fixed by changing the mailbox (e.g.
 150errors in the "From:" lines).
 151
 152
 153SEE ALSO
 154--------
 155linkgit:git-apply[1].
 156
 157
 158Author
 159------
 160Written by Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
 161
 162Documentation
 163--------------
 164Documentation by Petr Baudis, Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
 165
 166GIT
 167---
 168Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite