README 15 KB

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  1. # Copyright (c) 2011 The Chromium OS Authors.
  2. #
  3. # SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0+
  4. #
  5. What is this?
  6. =============
  7. This tool is a Python script which:
  8. - Creates patch directly from your branch
  9. - Cleans them up by removing unwanted tags
  10. - Inserts a cover letter with change lists
  11. - Runs the patches through checkpatch.pl and its own checks
  12. - Optionally emails them out to selected people
  13. It is intended to automate patch creation and make it a less
  14. error-prone process. It is useful for U-Boot and Linux work so far,
  15. since it uses the checkpatch.pl script.
  16. It is configured almost entirely by tags it finds in your commits.
  17. This means that you can work on a number of different branches at
  18. once, and keep the settings with each branch rather than having to
  19. git format-patch, git send-email, etc. with the correct parameters
  20. each time. So for example if you put:
  21. Series-to: fred.blogs@napier.co.nz
  22. in one of your commits, the series will be sent there.
  23. In Linux and U-Boot this will also call get_maintainer.pl on each of your
  24. patches automatically (unless you use -m to disable this).
  25. How to use this tool
  26. ====================
  27. This tool requires a certain way of working:
  28. - Maintain a number of branches, one for each patch series you are
  29. working on
  30. - Add tags into the commits within each branch to indicate where the
  31. series should be sent, cover letter, version, etc. Most of these are
  32. normally in the top commit so it is easy to change them with 'git
  33. commit --amend'
  34. - Each branch tracks the upstream branch, so that this script can
  35. automatically determine the number of commits in it (optional)
  36. - Check out a branch, and run this script to create and send out your
  37. patches. Weeks later, change the patches and repeat, knowing that you
  38. will get a consistent result each time.
  39. How to configure it
  40. ===================
  41. For most cases of using patman for U-Boot development, patman can use the
  42. file 'doc/git-mailrc' in your U-Boot directory to supply the email aliases
  43. you need. To make this work, tell git where to find the file by typing
  44. this once:
  45. git config sendemail.aliasesfile doc/git-mailrc
  46. For both Linux and U-Boot the 'scripts/get_maintainer.pl' handles figuring
  47. out where to send patches pretty well.
  48. During the first run patman creates a config file for you by taking the default
  49. user name and email address from the global .gitconfig file.
  50. To add your own, create a file ~/.patman like this:
  51. >>>>
  52. # patman alias file
  53. [alias]
  54. me: Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org>
  55. u-boot: U-Boot Mailing List <u-boot@lists.denx.de>
  56. wolfgang: Wolfgang Denk <wd@denx.de>
  57. others: Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org>, Fred Bloggs <f.bloggs@napier.net>
  58. <<<<
  59. Aliases are recursive.
  60. The checkpatch.pl in the U-Boot tools/ subdirectory will be located and
  61. used. Failing that you can put it into your path or ~/bin/checkpatch.pl
  62. If you want to change the defaults for patman's command-line arguments,
  63. you can add a [settings] section to your .patman file. This can be used
  64. for any command line option by referring to the "dest" for the option in
  65. patman.py. For reference, the useful ones (at the moment) shown below
  66. (all with the non-default setting):
  67. >>>
  68. [settings]
  69. ignore_errors: True
  70. process_tags: False
  71. verbose: True
  72. <<<
  73. If you want to adjust settings (or aliases) that affect just a single
  74. project you can add a section that looks like [project_settings] or
  75. [project_alias]. If you want to use tags for your linux work, you could
  76. do:
  77. >>>
  78. [linux_settings]
  79. process_tags: True
  80. <<<
  81. How to run it
  82. =============
  83. First do a dry run:
  84. $ ./tools/patman/patman -n
  85. If it can't detect the upstream branch, try telling it how many patches
  86. there are in your series:
  87. $ ./tools/patman/patman -n -c5
  88. This will create patch files in your current directory and tell you who
  89. it is thinking of sending them to. Take a look at the patch files.
  90. $ ./tools/patman/patman -n -c5 -s1
  91. Similar to the above, but skip the first commit and take the next 5. This
  92. is useful if your top commit is for setting up testing.
  93. How to install it
  94. =================
  95. The most up to date version of patman can be found in the U-boot sources.
  96. However to use it on other projects it may be more convenient to install it as
  97. a standalone application. A distutils installer is included, this can be used
  98. to install patman:
  99. $ cd tools/patman && python setup.py install
  100. How to add tags
  101. ===============
  102. To make this script useful you must add tags like the following into any
  103. commit. Most can only appear once in the whole series.
  104. Series-to: email / alias
  105. Email address / alias to send patch series to (you can add this
  106. multiple times)
  107. Series-cc: email / alias, ...
  108. Email address / alias to Cc patch series to (you can add this
  109. multiple times)
  110. Series-version: n
  111. Sets the version number of this patch series
  112. Series-prefix: prefix
  113. Sets the subject prefix. Normally empty but it can be RFC for
  114. RFC patches, or RESEND if you are being ignored. The patch subject
  115. is like [RFC PATCH] or [RESEND PATCH].
  116. In the meantime, git format.subjectprefix option will be added as
  117. well. If your format.subjectprefix is set to InternalProject, then
  118. the patch shows like: [InternalProject][RFC/RESEND PATCH]
  119. Series-name: name
  120. Sets the name of the series. You don't need to have a name, and
  121. patman does not yet use it, but it is convenient to put the branch
  122. name here to help you keep track of multiple upstreaming efforts.
  123. Cover-letter:
  124. This is the patch set title
  125. blah blah
  126. more blah blah
  127. END
  128. Sets the cover letter contents for the series. The first line
  129. will become the subject of the cover letter
  130. Cover-letter-cc: email / alias
  131. Additional email addresses / aliases to send cover letter to (you
  132. can add this multiple times)
  133. Series-notes:
  134. blah blah
  135. blah blah
  136. more blah blah
  137. END
  138. Sets some notes for the patch series, which you don't want in
  139. the commit messages, but do want to send, The notes are joined
  140. together and put after the cover letter. Can appear multiple
  141. times.
  142. Commit-notes:
  143. blah blah
  144. blah blah
  145. more blah blah
  146. END
  147. Similar, but for a single commit (patch). These notes will appear
  148. immediately below the --- cut in the patch file.
  149. Signed-off-by: Their Name <email>
  150. A sign-off is added automatically to your patches (this is
  151. probably a bug). If you put this tag in your patches, it will
  152. override the default signoff that patman automatically adds.
  153. Multiple duplicate signoffs will be removed.
  154. Tested-by: Their Name <email>
  155. Reviewed-by: Their Name <email>
  156. Acked-by: Their Name <email>
  157. These indicate that someone has tested/reviewed/acked your patch.
  158. When you get this reply on the mailing list, you can add this
  159. tag to the relevant commit and the script will include it when
  160. you send out the next version. If 'Tested-by:' is set to
  161. yourself, it will be removed. No one will believe you.
  162. Series-changes: n
  163. - Guinea pig moved into its cage
  164. - Other changes ending with a blank line
  165. <blank line>
  166. This can appear in any commit. It lists the changes for a
  167. particular version n of that commit. The change list is
  168. created based on this information. Each commit gets its own
  169. change list and also the whole thing is repeated in the cover
  170. letter (where duplicate change lines are merged).
  171. By adding your change lists into your commits it is easier to
  172. keep track of what happened. When you amend a commit, remember
  173. to update the log there and then, knowing that the script will
  174. do the rest.
  175. Patch-cc: Their Name <email>
  176. This copies a single patch to another email address. Note that the
  177. Cc: used by git send-email is ignored by patman, but will be
  178. interpreted by git send-email if you use it.
  179. Series-process-log: sort, uniq
  180. This tells patman to sort and/or uniq the change logs. It is
  181. assumed that each change log entry is only a single line long.
  182. Use 'sort' to sort the entries, and 'uniq' to include only
  183. unique entries. If omitted, no change log processing is done.
  184. Separate each tag with a comma.
  185. Various other tags are silently removed, like these Chrome OS and
  186. Gerrit tags:
  187. BUG=...
  188. TEST=...
  189. Change-Id:
  190. Review URL:
  191. Reviewed-on:
  192. Commit-xxxx: (except Commit-notes)
  193. Exercise for the reader: Try adding some tags to one of your current
  194. patch series and see how the patches turn out.
  195. Where Patches Are Sent
  196. ======================
  197. Once the patches are created, patman sends them using git send-email. The
  198. whole series is sent to the recipients in Series-to: and Series-cc.
  199. You can Cc individual patches to other people with the Patch-cc: tag. Tags
  200. in the subject are also picked up to Cc patches. For example, a commit like
  201. this:
  202. >>>>
  203. commit 10212537b85ff9b6e09c82045127522c0f0db981
  204. Author: Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org>
  205. Date: Mon Nov 7 23:18:44 2011 -0500
  206. x86: arm: add a git mailrc file for maintainers
  207. This should make sending out e-mails to the right people easier.
  208. Patch-cc: sandbox, mikef, ag
  209. Patch-cc: afleming
  210. <<<<
  211. will create a patch which is copied to x86, arm, sandbox, mikef, ag and
  212. afleming.
  213. If you have a cover letter it will get sent to the union of the Patch-cc
  214. lists of all of the other patches. If you want to sent it to additional
  215. people you can add a tag:
  216. Cover-letter-cc: <list of addresses>
  217. These people will get the cover letter even if they are not on the To/Cc
  218. list for any of the patches.
  219. Example Work Flow
  220. =================
  221. The basic workflow is to create your commits, add some tags to the top
  222. commit, and type 'patman' to check and send them.
  223. Here is an example workflow for a series of 4 patches. Let's say you have
  224. these rather contrived patches in the following order in branch us-cmd in
  225. your tree where 'us' means your upstreaming activity (newest to oldest as
  226. output by git log --oneline):
  227. 7c7909c wip
  228. 89234f5 Don't include standard parser if hush is used
  229. 8d640a7 mmc: sparc: Stop using builtin_run_command()
  230. 0c859a9 Rename run_command2() to run_command()
  231. a74443f sandbox: Rename run_command() to builtin_run_command()
  232. The first patch is some test things that enable your code to be compiled,
  233. but that you don't want to submit because there is an existing patch for it
  234. on the list. So you can tell patman to create and check some patches
  235. (skipping the first patch) with:
  236. patman -s1 -n
  237. If you want to do all of them including the work-in-progress one, then
  238. (if you are tracking an upstream branch):
  239. patman -n
  240. Let's say that patman reports an error in the second patch. Then:
  241. git rebase -i HEAD~6
  242. <change 'pick' to 'edit' in 89234f5>
  243. <use editor to make code changes>
  244. git add -u
  245. git rebase --continue
  246. Now you have an updated patch series. To check it:
  247. patman -s1 -n
  248. Let's say it is now clean and you want to send it. Now you need to set up
  249. the destination. So amend the top commit with:
  250. git commit --amend
  251. Use your editor to add some tags, so that the whole commit message is:
  252. The current run_command() is really only one of the options, with
  253. hush providing the other. It really shouldn't be called directly
  254. in case the hush parser is bring used, so rename this function to
  255. better explain its purpose.
  256. Series-to: u-boot
  257. Series-cc: bfin, marex
  258. Series-prefix: RFC
  259. Cover-letter:
  260. Unified command execution in one place
  261. At present two parsers have similar code to execute commands. Also
  262. cmd_usage() is called all over the place. This series adds a single
  263. function which processes commands called cmd_process().
  264. END
  265. Change-Id: Ica71a14c1f0ecb5650f771a32fecb8d2eb9d8a17
  266. You want this to be an RFC and Cc the whole series to the bfin alias and
  267. to Marek. Two of the patches have tags (those are the bits at the front of
  268. the subject that say mmc: sparc: and sandbox:), so 8d640a7 will be Cc'd to
  269. mmc and sparc, and the last one to sandbox.
  270. Now to send the patches, take off the -n flag:
  271. patman -s1
  272. The patches will be created, shown in your editor, and then sent along with
  273. the cover letter. Note that patman's tags are automatically removed so that
  274. people on the list don't see your secret info.
  275. Of course patches often attract comments and you need to make some updates.
  276. Let's say one person sent comments and you get an Acked-by: on one patch.
  277. Also, the patch on the list that you were waiting for has been merged,
  278. so you can drop your wip commit. So you resync with upstream:
  279. git fetch origin (or whatever upstream is called)
  280. git rebase origin/master
  281. and use git rebase -i to edit the commits, dropping the wip one. You add
  282. the ack tag to one commit:
  283. Acked-by: Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
  284. update the Series-cc: in the top commit:
  285. Series-cc: bfin, marex, Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
  286. and remove the Series-prefix: tag since it it isn't an RFC any more. The
  287. series is now version two, so the series info in the top commit looks like
  288. this:
  289. Series-to: u-boot
  290. Series-cc: bfin, marex, Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
  291. Series-version: 2
  292. Cover-letter:
  293. ...
  294. Finally, you need to add a change log to the two commits you changed. You
  295. add change logs to each individual commit where the changes happened, like
  296. this:
  297. Series-changes: 2
  298. - Updated the command decoder to reduce code size
  299. - Wound the torque propounder up a little more
  300. (note the blank line at the end of the list)
  301. When you run patman it will collect all the change logs from the different
  302. commits and combine them into the cover letter, if you have one. So finally
  303. you have a new series of commits:
  304. faeb973 Don't include standard parser if hush is used
  305. 1b2f2fe mmc: sparc: Stop using builtin_run_command()
  306. cfbe330 Rename run_command2() to run_command()
  307. 0682677 sandbox: Rename run_command() to builtin_run_command()
  308. so to send them:
  309. patman
  310. and it will create and send the version 2 series.
  311. General points:
  312. 1. When you change back to the us-cmd branch days or weeks later all your
  313. information is still there, safely stored in the commits. You don't need
  314. to remember what version you are up to, who you sent the last lot of patches
  315. to, or anything about the change logs.
  316. 2. If you put tags in the subject, patman will Cc the maintainers
  317. automatically in many cases.
  318. 3. If you want to keep the commits from each series you sent so that you can
  319. compare change and see what you did, you can either create a new branch for
  320. each version, or just tag the branch before you start changing it:
  321. git tag sent/us-cmd-rfc
  322. ...later...
  323. git tag sent/us-cmd-v2
  324. 4. If you want to modify the patches a little before sending, you can do
  325. this in your editor, but be careful!
  326. 5. If you want to run git send-email yourself, use the -n flag which will
  327. print out the command line patman would have used.
  328. 6. It is a good idea to add the change log info as you change the commit,
  329. not later when you can't remember which patch you changed. You can always
  330. go back and change or remove logs from commits.
  331. Other thoughts
  332. ==============
  333. This script has been split into sensible files but still needs work.
  334. Most of these are indicated by a TODO in the code.
  335. It would be nice if this could handle the In-reply-to side of things.
  336. The tests are incomplete, as is customary. Use the --test flag to run them,
  337. and make sure you are in the tools/patman directory first:
  338. $ cd /path/to/u-boot
  339. $ cd tools/patman
  340. $ ./patman --test
  341. Error handling doesn't always produce friendly error messages - e.g.
  342. putting an incorrect tag in a commit may provide a confusing message.
  343. There might be a few other features not mentioned in this README. They
  344. might be bugs. In particular, tags are case sensitive which is probably
  345. a bad thing.
  346. Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org>
  347. v1, v2, 19-Oct-11
  348. revised v3 24-Nov-11