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Simon Glass26132882012-01-14 15:12:45 +00001# Copyright (c) 2011 The Chromium OS Authors.
2#
3# See file CREDITS for list of people who contributed to this
4# project.
5#
6# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
7# modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
8# published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of
9# the License, or (at your option) any later version.
10#
11# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
12# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
Wolfgang Denk302007e2012-04-21 18:55:26 +020013# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
Simon Glass26132882012-01-14 15:12:45 +000014# GNU General Public License for more details.
15#
16# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
17# along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
18# Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston,
19# MA 02111-1307 USA
20#
21
22What is this?
23=============
24
25This tool is a Python script which:
26- Creates patch directly from your branch
27- Cleans them up by removing unwanted tags
28- Inserts a cover letter with change lists
29- Runs the patches through checkpatch.pl and its own checks
30- Optionally emails them out to selected people
31
32It is intended to automate patch creation and make it a less
33error-prone process. It is useful for U-Boot and Linux work so far,
34since it uses the checkpatch.pl script.
35
36It is configured almost entirely by tags it finds in your commits.
37This means that you can work on a number of different branches at
38once, and keep the settings with each branch rather than having to
39git format-patch, git send-email, etc. with the correct parameters
40each time. So for example if you put:
41
42Series-to: fred.blogs@napier.co.nz
43
44in one of your commits, the series will be sent there.
45
Doug Andersonc2c84bc2012-12-03 14:43:16 +000046In Linux this will also call get_maintainer.pl on each of your
47patches automatically.
48
Simon Glass26132882012-01-14 15:12:45 +000049
50How to use this tool
51====================
52
53This tool requires a certain way of working:
54
55- Maintain a number of branches, one for each patch series you are
56working on
57- Add tags into the commits within each branch to indicate where the
58series should be sent, cover letter, version, etc. Most of these are
59normally in the top commit so it is easy to change them with 'git
60commit --amend'
61- Each branch tracks the upstream branch, so that this script can
62automatically determine the number of commits in it (optional)
63- Check out a branch, and run this script to create and send out your
64patches. Weeks later, change the patches and repeat, knowing that you
65will get a consistent result each time.
66
67
68How to configure it
69===================
70
Doug Andersonc2c84bc2012-12-03 14:43:16 +000071For most cases of using patman for U-Boot developement patman will
72locate and use the file 'doc/git-mailrc' in your U-Boot directory.
73This contains most of the aliases you will need.
74
75For Linux the 'scripts/get_maintainer.pl' handles figuring out where
76to send patches pretty well.
Simon Glass26132882012-01-14 15:12:45 +000077
Vikram Narayanan12fb29a2012-05-23 09:01:06 +000078During the first run patman creates a config file for you by taking the default
79user name and email address from the global .gitconfig file.
80
Vikram Narayananc387d36d2012-05-23 08:58:58 +000081To add your own, create a file ~/.patman like this:
Simon Glass26132882012-01-14 15:12:45 +000082
83>>>>
84# patman alias file
85
86[alias]
87me: Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org>
88
89u-boot: U-Boot Mailing List <u-boot@lists.denx.de>
90wolfgang: Wolfgang Denk <wd@denx.de>
91others: Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org>, Fred Bloggs <f.bloggs@napier.net>
92
93<<<<
94
95Aliases are recursive.
96
97The checkpatch.pl in the U-Boot tools/ subdirectory will be located and
98used. Failing that you can put it into your path or ~/bin/checkpatch.pl
99
100
Doug Anderson3d3077c2012-12-03 14:43:17 +0000101If you want to change the defaults for patman's command-line arguments,
102you can add a [settings] section to your .patman file. This can be used
103for any command line option by referring to the "dest" for the option in
104patman.py. For reference, the useful ones (at the moment) shown below
105(all with the non-default setting):
106
107>>>
108
109[settings]
110ignore_errors: True
111process_tags: False
112verbose: True
113
114<<<
115
116
Doug Anderson31ffd7f2012-12-03 14:43:18 +0000117If you want to adjust settings (or aliases) that affect just a single
118project you can add a section that looks like [project_settings] or
119[project_alias]. If you want to use tags for your linux work, you could
120do:
121
122>>>
123
124[linux_settings]
125process_tags: True
126
127<<<
128
129
Simon Glass26132882012-01-14 15:12:45 +0000130How to run it
131=============
132
133First do a dry run:
134
Vikram Narayanane95ea8c2012-04-27 06:39:31 +0000135$ ./tools/patman/patman -n
Simon Glass26132882012-01-14 15:12:45 +0000136
137If it can't detect the upstream branch, try telling it how many patches
138there are in your series:
139
Vikram Narayanane95ea8c2012-04-27 06:39:31 +0000140$ ./tools/patman/patman -n -c5
Simon Glass26132882012-01-14 15:12:45 +0000141
142This will create patch files in your current directory and tell you who
143it is thinking of sending them to. Take a look at the patch files.
144
Vikram Narayanane95ea8c2012-04-27 06:39:31 +0000145$ ./tools/patman/patman -n -c5 -s1
Simon Glass26132882012-01-14 15:12:45 +0000146
147Similar to the above, but skip the first commit and take the next 5. This
148is useful if your top commit is for setting up testing.
149
150
151How to add tags
152===============
153
154To make this script useful you must add tags like the following into any
155commit. Most can only appear once in the whole series.
156
157Series-to: email / alias
Wolfgang Denk302007e2012-04-21 18:55:26 +0200158 Email address / alias to send patch series to (you can add this
159 multiple times)
Simon Glass26132882012-01-14 15:12:45 +0000160
161Series-cc: email / alias, ...
Wolfgang Denk302007e2012-04-21 18:55:26 +0200162 Email address / alias to Cc patch series to (you can add this
163 multiple times)
Simon Glass26132882012-01-14 15:12:45 +0000164
165Series-version: n
Wolfgang Denk302007e2012-04-21 18:55:26 +0200166 Sets the version number of this patch series
Simon Glass26132882012-01-14 15:12:45 +0000167
168Series-prefix: prefix
Wolfgang Denk302007e2012-04-21 18:55:26 +0200169 Sets the subject prefix. Normally empty but it can be RFC for
170 RFC patches, or RESEND if you are being ignored.
Simon Glass26132882012-01-14 15:12:45 +0000171
Simon Glasse7ecd3f2012-09-27 15:06:02 +0000172Series-name: name
173 Sets the name of the series. You don't need to have a name, and
174 patman does not yet use it, but it is convenient to put the branch
175 name here to help you keep track of multiple upstreaming efforts.
176
Simon Glass26132882012-01-14 15:12:45 +0000177Cover-letter:
178This is the patch set title
179blah blah
180more blah blah
181END
Wolfgang Denk302007e2012-04-21 18:55:26 +0200182 Sets the cover letter contents for the series. The first line
183 will become the subject of the cover letter
Simon Glass26132882012-01-14 15:12:45 +0000184
185Series-notes:
186blah blah
187blah blah
188more blah blah
189END
Wolfgang Denk302007e2012-04-21 18:55:26 +0200190 Sets some notes for the patch series, which you don't want in
191 the commit messages, but do want to send, The notes are joined
192 together and put after the cover letter. Can appear multiple
193 times.
Simon Glass26132882012-01-14 15:12:45 +0000194
195 Signed-off-by: Their Name <email>
Wolfgang Denk302007e2012-04-21 18:55:26 +0200196 A sign-off is added automatically to your patches (this is
197 probably a bug). If you put this tag in your patches, it will
198 override the default signoff that patman automatically adds.
Simon Glass26132882012-01-14 15:12:45 +0000199
200 Tested-by: Their Name <email>
201 Acked-by: Their Name <email>
Wolfgang Denk302007e2012-04-21 18:55:26 +0200202 These indicate that someone has acked or tested your patch.
203 When you get this reply on the mailing list, you can add this
204 tag to the relevant commit and the script will include it when
205 you send out the next version. If 'Tested-by:' is set to
206 yourself, it will be removed. No one will believe you.
Simon Glass26132882012-01-14 15:12:45 +0000207
208Series-changes: n
209- Guinea pig moved into its cage
210- Other changes ending with a blank line
211<blank line>
Wolfgang Denk302007e2012-04-21 18:55:26 +0200212 This can appear in any commit. It lists the changes for a
213 particular version n of that commit. The change list is
214 created based on this information. Each commit gets its own
215 change list and also the whole thing is repeated in the cover
216 letter (where duplicate change lines are merged).
Simon Glass26132882012-01-14 15:12:45 +0000217
Wolfgang Denk302007e2012-04-21 18:55:26 +0200218 By adding your change lists into your commits it is easier to
219 keep track of what happened. When you amend a commit, remember
220 to update the log there and then, knowing that the script will
221 do the rest.
Simon Glass26132882012-01-14 15:12:45 +0000222
223Cc: Their Name <email>
Wolfgang Denk302007e2012-04-21 18:55:26 +0200224 This copies a single patch to another email address.
Simon Glass26132882012-01-14 15:12:45 +0000225
226Various other tags are silently removed, like these Chrome OS and
227Gerrit tags:
228
229BUG=...
230TEST=...
231Change-Id:
232Review URL:
233Reviewed-on:
234Reviewed-by:
235
236
237Exercise for the reader: Try adding some tags to one of your current
238patch series and see how the patches turn out.
239
240
241Where Patches Are Sent
242======================
243
Vikram Narayanan867ad2a2012-04-25 05:45:05 +0000244Once the patches are created, patman sends them using git send-email. The
Simon Glass26132882012-01-14 15:12:45 +0000245whole series is sent to the recipients in Series-to: and Series-cc.
246You can Cc individual patches to other people with the Cc: tag. Tags in the
247subject are also picked up to Cc patches. For example, a commit like this:
248
249>>>>
250commit 10212537b85ff9b6e09c82045127522c0f0db981
251Author: Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org>
Wolfgang Denk302007e2012-04-21 18:55:26 +0200252Date: Mon Nov 7 23:18:44 2011 -0500
Simon Glass26132882012-01-14 15:12:45 +0000253
254 x86: arm: add a git mailrc file for maintainers
255
256 This should make sending out e-mails to the right people easier.
257
258 Cc: sandbox, mikef, ag
259 Cc: afleming
260<<<<
261
262will create a patch which is copied to x86, arm, sandbox, mikef, ag and
263afleming.
264
Doug Anderson05416af2012-12-03 14:40:43 +0000265If you have a cover letter it will get sent to the union of the CC lists of
266all of the other patches.
267
Simon Glass26132882012-01-14 15:12:45 +0000268
269Example Work Flow
270=================
271
272The basic workflow is to create your commits, add some tags to the top
273commit, and type 'patman' to check and send them.
274
275Here is an example workflow for a series of 4 patches. Let's say you have
276these rather contrived patches in the following order in branch us-cmd in
277your tree where 'us' means your upstreaming activity (newest to oldest as
278output by git log --oneline):
279
280 7c7909c wip
281 89234f5 Don't include standard parser if hush is used
282 8d640a7 mmc: sparc: Stop using builtin_run_command()
283 0c859a9 Rename run_command2() to run_command()
284 a74443f sandbox: Rename run_command() to builtin_run_command()
285
286The first patch is some test things that enable your code to be compiled,
287but that you don't want to submit because there is an existing patch for it
288on the list. So you can tell patman to create and check some patches
289(skipping the first patch) with:
290
291 patman -s1 -n
292
293If you want to do all of them including the work-in-progress one, then
294(if you are tracking an upstream branch):
295
296 patman -n
297
298Let's say that patman reports an error in the second patch. Then:
299
300 git rebase -i HEAD~6
301 <change 'pick' to 'edit' in 89234f5>
302 <use editor to make code changes>
303 git add -u
304 git rebase --continue
305
306Now you have an updated patch series. To check it:
307
308 patman -s1 -n
309
310Let's say it is now clean and you want to send it. Now you need to set up
311the destination. So amend the top commit with:
312
313 git commit --amend
314
315Use your editor to add some tags, so that the whole commit message is:
316
317 The current run_command() is really only one of the options, with
318 hush providing the other. It really shouldn't be called directly
319 in case the hush parser is bring used, so rename this function to
320 better explain its purpose.
321
322 Series-to: u-boot
323 Series-cc: bfin, marex
324 Series-prefix: RFC
325 Cover-letter:
326 Unified command execution in one place
327
328 At present two parsers have similar code to execute commands. Also
329 cmd_usage() is called all over the place. This series adds a single
330 function which processes commands called cmd_process().
331 END
332
333 Change-Id: Ica71a14c1f0ecb5650f771a32fecb8d2eb9d8a17
334
335
336You want this to be an RFC and Cc the whole series to the bfin alias and
337to Marek. Two of the patches have tags (those are the bits at the front of
338the subject that say mmc: sparc: and sandbox:), so 8d640a7 will be Cc'd to
339mmc and sparc, and the last one to sandbox.
340
341Now to send the patches, take off the -n flag:
342
343 patman -s1
344
345The patches will be created, shown in your editor, and then sent along with
346the cover letter. Note that patman's tags are automatically removed so that
347people on the list don't see your secret info.
348
349Of course patches often attract comments and you need to make some updates.
350Let's say one person sent comments and you get an Acked-by: on one patch.
351Also, the patch on the list that you were waiting for has been merged,
352so you can drop your wip commit. So you resync with upstream:
353
Wolfgang Denk302007e2012-04-21 18:55:26 +0200354 git fetch origin (or whatever upstream is called)
Simon Glass26132882012-01-14 15:12:45 +0000355 git rebase origin/master
356
357and use git rebase -i to edit the commits, dropping the wip one. You add
358the ack tag to one commit:
359
360 Acked-by: Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
361
362update the Series-cc: in the top commit:
363
364 Series-cc: bfin, marex, Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
365
366and remove the Series-prefix: tag since it it isn't an RFC any more. The
367series is now version two, so the series info in the top commit looks like
368this:
369
370 Series-to: u-boot
371 Series-cc: bfin, marex, Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
372 Series-version: 2
373 Cover-letter:
374 ...
375
376Finally, you need to add a change log to the two commits you changed. You
377add change logs to each individual commit where the changes happened, like
378this:
379
380 Series-changes: 2
381 - Updated the command decoder to reduce code size
382 - Wound the torque propounder up a little more
383
384(note the blank line at the end of the list)
385
386When you run patman it will collect all the change logs from the different
387commits and combine them into the cover letter, if you have one. So finally
388you have a new series of commits:
389
390 faeb973 Don't include standard parser if hush is used
391 1b2f2fe mmc: sparc: Stop using builtin_run_command()
392 cfbe330 Rename run_command2() to run_command()
393 0682677 sandbox: Rename run_command() to builtin_run_command()
394
395so to send them:
396
397 patman
398
399and it will create and send the version 2 series.
400
401General points:
402
4031. When you change back to the us-cmd branch days or weeks later all your
404information is still there, safely stored in the commits. You don't need
405to remember what version you are up to, who you sent the last lot of patches
406to, or anything about the change logs.
407
4082. If you put tags in the subject, patman will Cc the maintainers
409automatically in many cases.
410
4113. If you want to keep the commits from each series you sent so that you can
412compare change and see what you did, you can either create a new branch for
413each version, or just tag the branch before you start changing it:
414
415 git tag sent/us-cmd-rfc
416 ...later...
417 git tag sent/us-cmd-v2
418
4194. If you want to modify the patches a little before sending, you can do
420this in your editor, but be careful!
421
4225. If you want to run git send-email yourself, use the -n flag which will
423print out the command line patman would have used.
424
4256. It is a good idea to add the change log info as you change the commit,
426not later when you can't remember which patch you changed. You can always
427go back and change or remove logs from commits.
428
429
430Other thoughts
431==============
432
433This script has been split into sensible files but still needs work.
434Most of these are indicated by a TODO in the code.
435
436It would be nice if this could handle the In-reply-to side of things.
437
438The tests are incomplete, as is customary. Use the -t flag to run them,
439and make sure you are in the tools/scripts/patman directory first:
440
441 $ cd /path/to/u-boot
442 $ cd tools/scripts/patman
443 $ patman -t
444
445Error handling doesn't always produce friendly error messages - e.g.
446putting an incorrect tag in a commit may provide a confusing message.
447
448There might be a few other features not mentioned in this README. They
449might be bugs. In particular, tags are case sensitive which is probably
450a bad thing.
451
452
453Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org>
454v1, v2, 19-Oct-11
455revised v3 24-Nov-11