- the first line of the commit message should be a short
description (50 characters is the soft limit, see DISCUSSION
in git-commit(1)), and should skip the full stop
+ - it is also conventional in most cases to prefix the
+ first line with "area: " where the area is a filename
+ or identifier for the general area of the code being
+ modified, e.g.
+ . archive: ustar header checksum is computed unsigned
+ . git-cherry-pick.txt: clarify the use of revision range notation
+ (if in doubt which identifier to use, run "git log --no-merges"
+ on the files you are modifying to see the current conventions)
- the body should provide a meaningful commit message, which:
. explains the problem the change tries to solve, iow, what
is wrong with the current code without the change.
Long version:
-I started reading over the SubmittingPatches document for Linux
-kernel, primarily because I wanted to have a document similar to
-it for the core GIT to make sure people understand what they are
-doing when they write "Signed-off-by" line.
-
-But the patch submission requirements are a lot more relaxed
-here on the technical/contents front, because the core GIT is
-thousand times smaller ;-). So here is only the relevant bits.
+Here are some guidelines for people who want to contribute their code
+to this software.
(0) Decide what to base your work on.
run git diff --check on your changes before you commit.
-(1a) Try to be nice to older C compilers
-
-We try to support a wide range of C compilers to compile
-git with. That means that you should not use C99 initializers, even
-if a lot of compilers grok it.
-
-Also, variables have to be declared at the beginning of the block
-(you can check this with gcc, using the -Wdeclaration-after-statement
-option).
-
-Another thing: NULL pointers shall be written as NULL, not as 0.
-
-
(2) Generate your patch using git tools out of your commits.
git based diff tools generate unidiff which is the preferred format.