since the beginning of the time". If you want to format
everything since project inception to one commit, say "git
format-patch \--root <commit>" to make it clear that it is the
-latter case.
+latter case. If you want to format a single commit, you can do
+this with "git format-patch -1 <commit>".
By default, each output file is numbered sequentially from 1, and uses the
first line of the commit message (massaged for pathname safety) as
If -o is specified, output files are created in <dir>. Otherwise
they are created in the current working directory.
-If -n is specified, instead of "[PATCH] Subject", the first line
-is formatted as "[PATCH n/m] Subject".
+By default, the subject of a single patch is "[PATCH] First Line" and
+the subject when multiple patches are output is "[PATCH n/m] First
+Line". To force 1/1 to be added for a single patch, use -n. To omit
+patch numbers from the subject, use -N
If given --thread, 'git-format-patch' will generate In-Reply-To and
References headers to make the second and subsequent patch mails appear
-n::
--numbered::
- Name output in '[PATCH n/m]' format.
+ Name output in '[PATCH n/m]' format, even with a single patch.
-N::
--no-numbered::
to any configured headers, and may be used multiple times.
--cover-letter::
- Generate a cover letter template. You still have to fill in
- a description, but the shortlog and the diffstat will be
- generated for you.
+ In addition to the patches, generate a cover letter file
+ containing the shortlog and the overall diffstat. You can
+ fill in a description in the file before sending it out.
--suffix=.<sfx>::
Instead of using `.patch` as the suffix for generated