(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.
+git based diff tools 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
If you like, you can put extra tags at the end:
-1. "Reported-by:" is used to to credit someone who found the bug that
+1. "Reported-by:" is used to credit someone who found the bug that
the patch attempts to fix.
2. "Acked-by:" says that the person who is more familiar with the area
the patch attempts to modify liked the patch.
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:
+properly not to corrupt whitespaces.
-* Empty context lines that do not have _any_ whitespace.
+See the DISCUSSION section of git-format-patch(1) for hints on
+checking your patch by mailing it to yourself and applying with
+git-am(1).
-* 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 am 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; "am" would complain that
- the patch does not apply. Look at .git/rebase-apply/ 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.
+While you are at it, check the resulting commit log message from
+a trial run of applying the patch. If what is in the resulting
+commit is not exactly what you would want to see, 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
it.
-Thunderbird
------------
-
-(A Large Angry SCM)
-
-By default, Thunderbird will both wrap emails as well as flag them as
-being 'format=flowed', both of which will make the resulting email unusable
-by git.
-
-Here are some hints on how to successfully submit patches inline using
-Thunderbird.
-
-There are two different approaches. One approach is to configure
-Thunderbird to not mangle patches. The second approach is to use
-an external editor to keep Thunderbird from mangling the patches.
-
-Approach #1 (configuration):
-
-This recipe is current as of Thunderbird 2.0.0.19. Three steps:
- 1. Configure your mail server composition as plain text
- Edit...Account Settings...Composition & Addressing,
- uncheck 'Compose Messages in HTML'.
- 2. Configure your general composition window to not wrap
- Edit..Preferences..Composition, wrap plain text messages at 0
- 3. Disable the use of format=flowed
- Edit..Preferences..Advanced..Config Editor. Search for:
- mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed
- toggle it to make sure it is set to 'false'.
-
-After that is done, you should be able to compose email as you
-otherwise would (cut + paste, git-format-patch | git-imap-send, etc),
-and the patches should not be mangled.
-
-Approach #2 (external editor):
-
-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.
+Thunderbird, KMail, GMail
+-------------------------
-
-[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
-
-(Lukas Sandström)
-
-There is a script in contrib/thunderbird-patch-inline which can help
-you include patches with Thunderbird in an easy way. To use it, do the
-steps above and then use the script as the external editor.
+See the MUA-SPECIFIC HINTS section of git-format-patch(1).
Gnus
----
whitespaces (fatal in patches). Running 'C-u g' to display the
message in raw form before using '|' to run the pipe can work
this problem around.
-
-
-KMail
------
-
-This should help you to submit patches inline using KMail.
-
-1) Prepare the patch as a text file.
-
-2) Click on New Mail.
-
-3) Go under "Options" in the Composer window and be sure that
-"Word wrap" is not set.
-
-4) Use Message -> Insert file... and insert the patch.
-
-5) Back in the compose window: add whatever other text you wish to the
-message, complete the addressing and subject fields, and press send.
-
-
-Gmail
------
-
-GMail does not appear to have any way to turn off line wrapping in the web
-interface, so this will mangle any emails that you send. You can however
-use "git send-email" and send your patches through the GMail SMTP server, or
-use any IMAP email client to connect to the google IMAP server and forward
-the emails through that.
-
-To use "git send-email" and send your patches through the GMail SMTP server,
-edit ~/.gitconfig to specify your account settings:
-
-[sendemail]
- smtpencryption = tls
- smtpserver = smtp.gmail.com
- smtpuser = user@gmail.com
- smtppass = p4ssw0rd
- smtpserverport = 587
-
-Once your commits are ready to be sent to the mailing list, run the
-following commands:
-
- $ git format-patch --cover-letter -M origin/master -o outgoing/
- $ edit outgoing/0000-*
- $ git send-email outgoing/*
-
-To submit using the IMAP interface, first, edit your ~/.gitconfig to specify your
-account settings:
-
-[imap]
- folder = "[Gmail]/Drafts"
- host = imaps://imap.gmail.com
- user = user@gmail.com
- pass = p4ssw0rd
- port = 993
- sslverify = false
-
-You might need to instead use: folder = "[Google Mail]/Drafts" if you get an error
-that the "Folder doesn't exist".
-
-Once your commits are ready to be sent to the mailing list, run the
-following commands:
-
- $ git format-patch --cover-letter -M --stdout origin/master | git imap-send
-
-Just make sure to disable line wrapping in the email client (GMail web
-interface will line wrap no matter what, so you need to use a real
-IMAP client).
-