doing when they write "Signed-off-by" line.
But the patch submission requirements are a lot more relaxed
-here, because the core GIT is thousand times smaller ;-). So
-here is only the relevant bits.
+here on the technical/contents front, because the core GIT is
+thousand times smaller ;-). So here is only the relevant bits.
(1) Make separate commits for logically separate changes.
Describe the technical detail of the change(s).
-If your description starts to get long, that's a sign that you
+If your description starts to get too long, that's a sign that you
probably need to split up your commit to finer grained pieces.
+Oh, another thing. I am picky about whitespaces. Make sure your
+changes do not trigger errors with the sample pre-commit hook shipped
+in templates/hooks--pre-commit.
-(2) Generate your patch using git/cogito out of your commits.
-git diff tools generate unidiff which is the preferred format.
+(2) Generate your patch using git tools out of your commits.
+
+git based diff tools (git, Cogito, and StGIT included) generate
+unidiff which is the preferred format.
+
You do not have to be afraid to use -M option to "git diff" or
"git format-patch", if your patch involves file renames. The
receiving end can handle them just fine.
which do not belong in a patch submission. Make sure to review
your patch after generating it, to ensure accuracy. Before
sending out, please make sure it cleanly applies to the "master"
-branch head.
+branch head. If you are preparing a work based on "next" branch,
+that is fine, but please mark it as such.
(3) Sending your patches.
-People on the git mailing list needs to be able to read and
+People on the git mailing list need to be able to read and
comment on the changes you are submitting. It is important for
a developer to be able to "quote" your changes, using standard
e-mail tools, so that they may comment on specific portions of
-your code. For this reason, all patches should be submitting
-e-mail "inline". WARNING: Be wary of your MUAs word-wrap
-corrupting your patch. Do not cut-n-paste your patch.
+your code. For this reason, all patches should be submited
+"inline". WARNING: Be wary of your MUAs word-wrap
+corrupting your patch. Do not cut-n-paste your patch; you can
+lose tabs that way if you are not careful.
-It is common convention to prefix your subject line with
+It is a common convention to prefix your subject line with
[PATCH]. This lets people easily distinguish patches from other
e-mail discussions.
that it will be postponed.
Exception: If your mailer is mangling patches then someone may ask
-you to re-send them using MIME.
+you to re-send them using MIME, that is OK.
+
+Do not PGP sign your patch, at least for now. Most likely, your
+maintainer or other people on the list would not have your PGP
+key and would not bother obtaining it anyway. Your patch is not
+judged by who you are; a good patch from an unknown origin has a
+far better chance of being accepted than a patch from a known,
+respected origin that is done poorly or does incorrect things.
+
+If you really really really really want to do a PGP signed
+patch, format it as "multipart/signed", not a text/plain message
+that starts with '-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----'. That is
+not a text/plain, it's something else.
-Note that your maintainer does not subscribe to the git mailing
-list (he reads it via mail-to-news gateway). If your patch is
-for discussion first, send it "To:" the mailing list, and
-optoinally "cc:" him. If it is trivially correct or after list
-discussion reached consensus, send it "To:" the maintainer and
-optionally "cc:" the list.
+Note that your maintainer does not necessarily read everything
+on the git mailing list. If your patch is for discussion first,
+send it "To:" the mailing list, and optionally "cc:" him. If it
+is trivially correct or after the list reached a consensus, send
+it "To:" the maintainer and optionally "cc:" the list.
(6) Sign your work
Some people also put extra tags at the end. They'll just be ignored for
now, but you can do this to mark internal company procedures or just
point out some special detail about the sign-off.
+
+
+------------------------------------------------
+MUA specific hints
+
+Some of patches I receive or pick up from the list share common
+patterns of breakage. Please make sure your MUA is set up
+properly not to corrupt whitespaces. Here are two common ones
+I have seen:
+
+* Empty context lines that do not have _any_ whitespace.
+
+* Non empty context lines that have one extra whitespace at the
+ beginning.
+
+One test you could do yourself if your MUA is set up correctly is:
+
+* Send the patch to yourself, exactly the way you would, except
+ To: and Cc: lines, which would not contain the list and
+ maintainer address.
+
+* Save that patch to a file in UNIX mailbox format. Call it say
+ a.patch.
+
+* Try to apply to the tip of the "master" branch from the
+ git.git public repository:
+
+ $ git fetch http://kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git master:test-apply
+ $ git checkout test-apply
+ $ git reset --hard
+ $ git applymbox a.patch
+
+If it does not apply correctly, there can be various reasons.
+
+* Your patch itself does not apply cleanly. That is _bad_ but
+ does not have much to do with your MUA. Please rebase the
+ patch appropriately.
+
+* Your MUA corrupted your patch; applymbox would complain that
+ the patch does not apply. Look at .dotest/ subdirectory and
+ see what 'patch' file contains and check for the common
+ corruption patterns mentioned above.
+
+* While you are at it, check what are in 'info' and
+ 'final-commit' files as well. If what is in 'final-commit' is
+ not exactly what you would want to see in the commit log
+ message, it is very likely that your maintainer would end up
+ hand editing the log message when he applies your patch.
+ Things like "Hi, this is my first patch.\n", if you really
+ want to put in the patch e-mail, should come after the
+ three-dash line that signals the end of the commit message.
+
+
+Pine
+----
+
+(Johannes Schindelin)
+
+I don't know how many people still use pine, but for those poor
+souls it may be good to mention that the quell-flowed-text is
+needed for recent versions.
+
+... the "no-strip-whitespace-before-send" option, too. AFAIK it
+was introduced in 4.60.
+
+(Linus Torvalds)
+
+And 4.58 needs at least this.
+
+---
+diff-tree 8326dd8350be64ac7fc805f6563a1d61ad10d32c (from e886a61f76edf5410573e92e38ce22974f9c40f1)
+Author: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@g5.osdl.org>
+Date: Mon Aug 15 17:23:51 2005 -0700
+
+ Fix pine whitespace-corruption bug
+
+ There's no excuse for unconditionally removing whitespace from
+ the pico buffers on close.
+
+diff --git a/pico/pico.c b/pico/pico.c
+--- a/pico/pico.c
++++ b/pico/pico.c
+@@ -219,7 +219,9 @@ PICO *pm;
+ switch(pico_all_done){ /* prepare for/handle final events */
+ case COMP_EXIT : /* already confirmed */
+ packheader();
++#if 0
+ stripwhitespace();
++#endif
+ c |= COMP_EXIT;
+ break;
+
+
+(Daniel Barkalow)
+
+> A patch to SubmittingPatches, MUA specific help section for
+> users of Pine 4.63 would be very much appreciated.
+
+Ah, it looks like a recent version changed the default behavior to do the
+right thing, and inverted the sense of the configuration option. (Either
+that or Gentoo did it.) So you need to set the
+"no-strip-whitespace-before-send" option, unless the option you have is
+"strip-whitespace-before-send", in which case you should avoid checking
+it.
+
+
+Thunderbird
+-----------
+
+(A Large Angry SCM)
+
+Here are some hints on how to successfully submit patches inline using
+Thunderbird.
+
+This recipe appears to work with the current [*1*] Thunderbird from Suse.
+
+The following Thunderbird extensions are needed:
+ AboutConfig 0.5
+ http://aboutconfig.mozdev.org/
+ External Editor 0.7.2
+ http://globs.org/articles.php?lng=en&pg=8
+
+1) Prepare the patch as a text file using your method of choice.
+
+2) Before opening a compose window, use Edit->Account Settings to
+uncheck the "Compose messages in HTML format" setting in the
+"Composition & Addressing" panel of the account to be used to send the
+patch. [*2*]
+
+3) In the main Thunderbird window, _before_ you open the compose window
+for the patch, use Tools->about:config to set the following to the
+indicated values:
+ mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed => false
+ mailnews.wraplength => 0
+
+4) Open a compose window and click the external editor icon.
+
+5) In the external editor window, read in the patch file and exit the
+editor normally.
+
+6) Back in the compose window: Add whatever other text you wish to the
+message, complete the addressing and subject fields, and press send.
+
+7) Optionally, undo the about:config/account settings changes made in
+steps 2 & 3.
+
+
+[Footnotes]
+*1* Version 1.0 (20041207) from the MozillaThunderbird-1.0-5 rpm of Suse
+9.3 professional updates.
+
+*2* It may be possible to do this with about:config and the following
+settings but I haven't tried, yet.
+ mail.html_compose => false
+ mail.identity.default.compose_html => false
+ mail.identity.id?.compose_html => false
+