1Checklist (and a short version for the impatient): 2 3 Commits: 4 5 - make commits of logical units 6 - check for unnecessary whitespace with "git diff --check" 7 before committing 8 - do not check in commented out code or unneeded files 9 - provide a meaningful commit message 10 - the first line of the commit message should be a short 11 description and should skip the full stop 12 - if you want your work included in git.git, add a 13 "Signed-off-by: Your Name <you@example.com>" line to the 14 commit message (or just use the option "-s" when 15 committing) to confirm that you agree to the Developer's 16 Certificate of Origin 17 - make sure that you have tests for the bug you are fixing 18 - make sure that the test suite passes after your commit 19 20 Patch: 21 22 - use "git format-patch -M" to create the patch 23 - do not PGP sign your patch 24 - do not attach your patch, but read in the mail 25 body, unless you cannot teach your mailer to 26 leave the formatting of the patch alone. 27 - be careful doing cut & paste into your mailer, not to 28 corrupt whitespaces. 29 - provide additional information (which is unsuitable for 30 the commit message) between the "---" and the diffstat 31 - if you change, add, or remove a command line option or 32 make some other user interface change, the associated 33 documentation should be updated as well. 34 - if your name is not writable in ASCII, make sure that 35 you send off a message in the correct encoding. 36 - send the patch to the list (git@vger.kernel.org) and the 37 maintainer (gitster@pobox.com) if (and only if) the patch 38 is ready for inclusion. If you use git-send-email(1), 39 please test it first by sending email to yourself. 40 41Long version: 42 43I started reading over the SubmittingPatches document for Linux 44kernel, primarily because I wanted to have a document similar to 45it for the core GIT to make sure people understand what they are 46doing when they write "Signed-off-by" line. 47 48But the patch submission requirements are a lot more relaxed 49here on the technical/contents front, because the core GIT is 50thousand times smaller ;-). So here is only the relevant bits. 51 52 53(1) Make separate commits for logically separate changes. 54 55Unless your patch is really trivial, you should not be sending 56out a patch that was generated between your working tree and 57your commit head. Instead, always make a commit with complete 58commit message and generate a series of patches from your 59repository. It is a good discipline. 60 61Describe the technical detail of the change(s). 62 63If your description starts to get too long, that's a sign that you 64probably need to split up your commit to finer grained pieces. 65 66Oh, another thing. I am picky about whitespaces. Make sure your 67changes do not trigger errors with the sample pre-commit hook shipped 68in templates/hooks--pre-commit. To help ensure this does not happen, 69run git diff --check on your changes before you commit. 70 71 72(1a) Try to be nice to older C compilers 73 74We try to support a wide range of C compilers to compile 75git with. That means that you should not use C99 initializers, even 76if a lot of compilers grok it. 77 78Also, variables have to be declared at the beginning of the block 79(you can check this with gcc, using the -Wdeclaration-after-statement 80option). 81 82Another thing: NULL pointers shall be written as NULL, not as 0. 83 84 85(2) Generate your patch using git tools out of your commits. 86 87git based diff tools (git, Cogito, and StGIT included) generate 88unidiff which is the preferred format. 89 90You do not have to be afraid to use -M option to "git diff" or 91"git format-patch", if your patch involves file renames. The 92receiving end can handle them just fine. 93 94Please make sure your patch does not include any extra files 95which do not belong in a patch submission. Make sure to review 96your patch after generating it, to ensure accuracy. Before 97sending out, please make sure it cleanly applies to the "master" 98branch head. If you are preparing a work based on "next" branch, 99that is fine, but please mark it as such. 100 101 102(3) Sending your patches. 103 104People on the git mailing list need to be able to read and 105comment on the changes you are submitting. It is important for 106a developer to be able to "quote" your changes, using standard 107e-mail tools, so that they may comment on specific portions of 108your code. For this reason, all patches should be submitted 109"inline". WARNING: Be wary of your MUAs word-wrap 110corrupting your patch. Do not cut-n-paste your patch; you can 111lose tabs that way if you are not careful. 112 113It is a common convention to prefix your subject line with 114[PATCH]. This lets people easily distinguish patches from other 115e-mail discussions. Use of additional markers after PATCH and 116the closing bracket to mark the nature of the patch is also 117encouraged. E.g. [PATCH/RFC] is often used when the patch is 118not ready to be applied but it is for discussion, [PATCH v2], 119[PATCH v3] etc. are often seen when you are sending an update to 120what you have previously sent. 121 122"git format-patch" command follows the best current practice to 123format the body of an e-mail message. At the beginning of the 124patch should come your commit message, ending with the 125Signed-off-by: lines, and a line that consists of three dashes, 126followed by the diffstat information and the patch itself. If 127you are forwarding a patch from somebody else, optionally, at 128the beginning of the e-mail message just before the commit 129message starts, you can put a "From: " line to name that person. 130 131You often want to add additional explanation about the patch, 132other than the commit message itself. Place such "cover letter" 133material between the three dash lines and the diffstat. 134 135Do not attach the patch as a MIME attachment, compressed or not. 136Do not let your e-mail client send quoted-printable. Do not let 137your e-mail client send format=flowed which would destroy 138whitespaces in your patches. Many 139popular e-mail applications will not always transmit a MIME 140attachment as plain text, making it impossible to comment on 141your code. A MIME attachment also takes a bit more time to 142process. This does not decrease the likelihood of your 143MIME-attached change being accepted, but it makes it more likely 144that it will be postponed. 145 146Exception: If your mailer is mangling patches then someone may ask 147you to re-send them using MIME, that is OK. 148 149Do not PGP sign your patch, at least for now. Most likely, your 150maintainer or other people on the list would not have your PGP 151key and would not bother obtaining it anyway. Your patch is not 152judged by who you are; a good patch from an unknown origin has a 153far better chance of being accepted than a patch from a known, 154respected origin that is done poorly or does incorrect things. 155 156If you really really really really want to do a PGP signed 157patch, format it as "multipart/signed", not a text/plain message 158that starts with '-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----'. That is 159not a text/plain, it's something else. 160 161Note that your maintainer does not necessarily read everything 162on the git mailing list. If your patch is for discussion first, 163send it "To:" the mailing list, and optionally "cc:" him. If it 164is trivially correct or after the list reached a consensus, send 165it "To:" the maintainer and optionally "cc:" the list for 166inclusion. 167 168Also note that your maintainer does not actively involve himself in 169maintaining what are in contrib/ hierarchy. When you send fixes and 170enhancements to them, do not forget to "cc: " the person who primarily 171worked on that hierarchy in contrib/. 172 173 174(4) Sign your work 175 176To improve tracking of who did what, we've borrowed the 177"sign-off" procedure from the Linux kernel project on patches 178that are being emailed around. Although core GIT is a lot 179smaller project it is a good discipline to follow it. 180 181The sign-off is a simple line at the end of the explanation for 182the patch, which certifies that you wrote it or otherwise have 183the right to pass it on as a open-source patch. The rules are 184pretty simple: if you can certify the below: 185 186 Developer's Certificate of Origin 1.1 187 188 By making a contribution to this project, I certify that: 189 190 (a) The contribution was created in whole or in part by me and I 191 have the right to submit it under the open source license 192 indicated in the file; or 193 194 (b) The contribution is based upon previous work that, to the best 195 of my knowledge, is covered under an appropriate open source 196 license and I have the right under that license to submit that 197 work with modifications, whether created in whole or in part 198 by me, under the same open source license (unless I am 199 permitted to submit under a different license), as indicated 200 in the file; or 201 202 (c) The contribution was provided directly to me by some other 203 person who certified (a), (b) or (c) and I have not modified 204 it. 205 206 (d) I understand and agree that this project and the contribution 207 are public and that a record of the contribution (including all 208 personal information I submit with it, including my sign-off) is 209 maintained indefinitely and may be redistributed consistent with 210 this project or the open source license(s) involved. 211 212then you just add a line saying 213 214 Signed-off-by: Random J Developer <random@developer.example.org> 215 216This line can be automatically added by git if you run the git-commit 217command with the -s option. 218 219Notice that you can place your own Signed-off-by: line when 220forwarding somebody else's patch with the above rules for 221D-C-O. Indeed you are encouraged to do so. Do not forget to 222place an in-body "From: " line at the beginning to properly attribute 223the change to its true author (see (2) above). 224 225Also notice that a real name is used in the Signed-off-by: line. Please 226don't hide your real name. 227 228Some people also put extra tags at the end. 229 230"Acked-by:" says that the patch was reviewed by the person who 231is more familiar with the issues and the area the patch attempts 232to modify. "Tested-by:" says the patch was tested by the person 233and found to have the desired effect. 234 235------------------------------------------------ 236An ideal patch flow 237 238Here is an ideal patch flow for this project the current maintainer 239suggests to the contributors: 240 241 (0) You come up with an itch. You code it up. 242 243 (1) Send it to the list and cc people who may need to know about 244 the change. 245 246 The people who may need to know are the ones whose code you 247 are butchering. These people happen to be the ones who are 248 most likely to be knowledgeable enough to help you, but 249 they have no obligation to help you (i.e. you ask for help, 250 don't demand). "git log -p -- $area_you_are_modifying" would 251 help you find out who they are. 252 253 (2) You get comments and suggestions for improvements. You may 254 even get them in a "on top of your change" patch form. 255 256 (3) Polish, refine, and re-send to the list and the people who 257 spend their time to improve your patch. Go back to step (2). 258 259 (4) The list forms consensus that the last round of your patch is 260 good. Send it to the list and cc the maintainer. 261 262 (5) A topic branch is created with the patch and is merged to 'next', 263 and cooked further and eventually graduates to 'master'. 264 265In any time between the (2)-(3) cycle, the maintainer may pick it up 266from the list and queue it to 'pu', in order to make it easier for 267people play with it without having to pick up and apply the patch to 268their trees themselves. 269 270------------------------------------------------ 271MUA specific hints 272 273Some of patches I receive or pick up from the list share common 274patterns of breakage. Please make sure your MUA is set up 275properly not to corrupt whitespaces. Here are two common ones 276I have seen: 277 278* Empty context lines that do not have _any_ whitespace. 279 280* Non empty context lines that have one extra whitespace at the 281 beginning. 282 283One test you could do yourself if your MUA is set up correctly is: 284 285* Send the patch to yourself, exactly the way you would, except 286 To: and Cc: lines, which would not contain the list and 287 maintainer address. 288 289* Save that patch to a file in UNIX mailbox format. Call it say 290 a.patch. 291 292* Try to apply to the tip of the "master" branch from the 293 git.git public repository: 294 295 $ git fetch http://kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git master:test-apply 296 $ git checkout test-apply 297 $ git reset --hard 298 $ git am a.patch 299 300If it does not apply correctly, there can be various reasons. 301 302* Your patch itself does not apply cleanly. That is _bad_ but 303 does not have much to do with your MUA. Please rebase the 304 patch appropriately. 305 306* Your MUA corrupted your patch; "am" would complain that 307 the patch does not apply. Look at .git/rebase-apply/ subdirectory and 308 see what 'patch' file contains and check for the common 309 corruption patterns mentioned above. 310 311* While you are at it, check what are in 'info' and 312 'final-commit' files as well. If what is in 'final-commit' is 313 not exactly what you would want to see in the commit log 314 message, it is very likely that your maintainer would end up 315 hand editing the log message when he applies your patch. 316 Things like "Hi, this is my first patch.\n", if you really 317 want to put in the patch e-mail, should come after the 318 three-dash line that signals the end of the commit message. 319 320 321Pine 322---- 323 324(Johannes Schindelin) 325 326I don't know how many people still use pine, but for those poor 327souls it may be good to mention that the quell-flowed-text is 328needed for recent versions. 329 330... the "no-strip-whitespace-before-send" option, too. AFAIK it 331was introduced in 4.60. 332 333(Linus Torvalds) 334 335And 4.58 needs at least this. 336 337--- 338diff-tree 8326dd8350be64ac7fc805f6563a1d61ad10d32c (from e886a61f76edf5410573e92e38ce22974f9c40f1) 339Author: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@g5.osdl.org> 340Date: Mon Aug 15 17:23:51 2005 -0700 341 342 Fix pine whitespace-corruption bug 343 344 There's no excuse for unconditionally removing whitespace from 345 the pico buffers on close. 346 347diff --git a/pico/pico.c b/pico/pico.c 348--- a/pico/pico.c 349+++ b/pico/pico.c 350@@ -219,7 +219,9 @@ PICO *pm; 351 switch(pico_all_done){ /* prepare for/handle final events */ 352 case COMP_EXIT : /* already confirmed */ 353 packheader(); 354+#if 0 355 stripwhitespace(); 356+#endif 357 c |= COMP_EXIT; 358 break; 359 360 361(Daniel Barkalow) 362 363> A patch to SubmittingPatches, MUA specific help section for 364> users of Pine 4.63 would be very much appreciated. 365 366Ah, it looks like a recent version changed the default behavior to do the 367right thing, and inverted the sense of the configuration option. (Either 368that or Gentoo did it.) So you need to set the 369"no-strip-whitespace-before-send" option, unless the option you have is 370"strip-whitespace-before-send", in which case you should avoid checking 371it. 372 373 374Thunderbird 375----------- 376 377(A Large Angry SCM) 378 379By default, Thunderbird will both wrap emails as well as flag them as 380being 'format=flowed', both of which will make the resulting email unusable 381by git. 382 383Here are some hints on how to successfully submit patches inline using 384Thunderbird. 385 386There are two different approaches. One approach is to configure 387Thunderbird to not mangle patches. The second approach is to use 388an external editor to keep Thunderbird from mangling the patches. 389 390Approach #1 (configuration): 391 392This recipe is current as of Thunderbird 2.0.0.19. Three steps: 393 1. Configure your mail server composition as plain text 394 Edit...Account Settings...Composition & Addressing, 395 uncheck 'Compose Messages in HTML'. 396 2. Configure your general composition window to not wrap 397 Edit..Preferences..Composition, wrap plain text messages at 0 398 3. Disable the use of format=flowed 399 Edit..Preferences..Advanced..Config Editor. Search for: 400 mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed 401 toggle it to make sure it is set to 'false'. 402 403After that is done, you should be able to compose email as you 404otherwise would (cut + paste, git-format-patch | git-imap-send, etc), 405and the patches should not be mangled. 406 407Approach #2 (external editor): 408 409This recipe appears to work with the current [*1*] Thunderbird from Suse. 410 411The following Thunderbird extensions are needed: 412 AboutConfig 0.5 413 http://aboutconfig.mozdev.org/ 414 External Editor 0.7.2 415 http://globs.org/articles.php?lng=en&pg=8 416 4171) Prepare the patch as a text file using your method of choice. 418 4192) Before opening a compose window, use Edit->Account Settings to 420uncheck the "Compose messages in HTML format" setting in the 421"Composition & Addressing" panel of the account to be used to send the 422patch. [*2*] 423 4243) In the main Thunderbird window, _before_ you open the compose window 425for the patch, use Tools->about:config to set the following to the 426indicated values: 427 mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed => false 428 mailnews.wraplength => 0 429 4304) Open a compose window and click the external editor icon. 431 4325) In the external editor window, read in the patch file and exit the 433editor normally. 434 4356) Back in the compose window: Add whatever other text you wish to the 436message, complete the addressing and subject fields, and press send. 437 4387) Optionally, undo the about:config/account settings changes made in 439steps 2 & 3. 440 441 442[Footnotes] 443*1* Version 1.0 (20041207) from the MozillaThunderbird-1.0-5 rpm of Suse 4449.3 professional updates. 445 446*2* It may be possible to do this with about:config and the following 447settings but I haven't tried, yet. 448 mail.html_compose => false 449 mail.identity.default.compose_html => false 450 mail.identity.id?.compose_html => false 451 452(Lukas Sandström) 453 454There is a script in contrib/thunderbird-patch-inline which can help 455you include patches with Thunderbird in an easy way. To use it, do the 456steps above and then use the script as the external editor. 457 458Gnus 459---- 460 461'|' in the *Summary* buffer can be used to pipe the current 462message to an external program, and this is a handy way to drive 463"git am". However, if the message is MIME encoded, what is 464piped into the program is the representation you see in your 465*Article* buffer after unwrapping MIME. This is often not what 466you would want for two reasons. It tends to screw up non ASCII 467characters (most notably in people's names), and also 468whitespaces (fatal in patches). Running 'C-u g' to display the 469message in raw form before using '|' to run the pipe can work 470this problem around. 471 472 473KMail 474----- 475 476This should help you to submit patches inline using KMail. 477 4781) Prepare the patch as a text file. 479 4802) Click on New Mail. 481 4823) Go under "Options" in the Composer window and be sure that 483"Word wrap" is not set. 484 4854) Use Message -> Insert file... and insert the patch. 486 4875) Back in the compose window: add whatever other text you wish to the 488message, complete the addressing and subject fields, and press send. 489 490 491Gmail 492----- 493 494Submitting properly formatted patches via Gmail is simple now that 495IMAP support is available. First, edit your ~/.gitconfig to specify your 496account settings: 497 498[imap] 499 folder = "[Gmail]/Drafts" 500 host = imaps://imap.gmail.com 501 user = user@gmail.com 502 pass = p4ssw0rd 503 port = 993 504 sslverify = false 505 506Next, ensure that your Gmail settings are correct. In "Settings" the 507"Use Unicode (UTF-8) encoding for outgoing messages" should be checked. 508 509Once your commits are ready to send to the mailing list, run the following 510command to send the patch emails to your Gmail Drafts folder. 511 512 $ git format-patch -M --stdout origin/master | git imap-send 513 514Go to your Gmail account, open the Drafts folder, find the patch email, fill 515in the To: and CC: fields and send away!