- check for unnecessary whitespace with "git diff --check"
before committing
- do not check in commented out code or unneeded files
- - provide a meaningful commit message
- the first line of the commit message should be a short
description and should skip the full stop
+ - the body should provide a meaningful commit message, which:
+ - uses the imperative, present tense: "change",
+ not "changed" or "changes".
+ - includes motivation for the change, and contrasts
+ its implementation with previous behaviour
- if you want your work included in git.git, add a
"Signed-off-by: Your Name <you@example.com>" line to the
commit message (or just use the option "-s" when
maintainer (gitster@pobox.com) if (and only if) the patch
is ready for inclusion. If you use git-send-email(1),
please test it first by sending email to yourself.
+ - see below for instructions specific to your mailer
Long version:
here on the technical/contents front, because the core GIT is
thousand times smaller ;-). So here is only the relevant bits.
+(0) Decide what to base your work on.
+
+In general, always base your work on the oldest branch that your
+change is relevant to.
+
+ - A bugfix should be based on 'maint' in general. If the bug is not
+ present in 'maint', base it on 'master'. For a bug that's not yet
+ in 'master', find the topic that introduces the regression, and
+ base your work on the tip of the topic.
+
+ - A new feature should be based on 'master' in general. If the new
+ feature depends on a topic that is in 'pu', but not in 'master',
+ base your work on the tip of that topic.
+
+ - Corrections and enhancements to a topic not yet in 'master' should
+ be based on the tip of that topic. If the topic has not been merged
+ to 'next', it's alright to add a note to squash minor corrections
+ into the series.
+
+ - In the exceptional case that a new feature depends on several topics
+ not in 'master', start working on 'next' or 'pu' privately and send
+ out patches for discussion. Before the final merge, you may have to
+ wait until some of the dependent topics graduate to 'master', and
+ rebase your work.
+
+To find the tip of a topic branch, run "git log --first-parent
+master..pu" and look for the merge commit. The second parent of this
+commit is the tip of the topic branch.
(1) Make separate commits for logically separate changes.
If your description starts to get too long, that's a sign that you
probably need to split up your commit to finer grained pieces.
+That being said, patches which plainly describe the things that
+help reviewers check the patch, and future maintainers understand
+the code, are the most beautiful patches. Descriptions that summarise
+the point in the subject well, and describe the motivation for the
+change, the approach taken by the change, and if relevant how this
+differs substantially from the prior version, can be found on Usenet
+archives back into the late 80's. Consider it like good Netiquette,
+but for code.
Oh, another thing. I am picky about whitespaces. Make sure your
changes do not trigger errors with the sample pre-commit hook shipped
that starts with '-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----'. That is
not a text/plain, it's something else.
-Note that your maintainer does not necessarily read everything
-on the git mailing list. If your patch is for discussion first,
-send it "To:" the mailing list, and optionally "cc:" him. If it
-is trivially correct or after the list reached a consensus, send
-it "To:" the maintainer and optionally "cc:" the list for
-inclusion.
-
-Also note that your maintainer does not actively involve himself in
-maintaining what are in contrib/ hierarchy. When you send fixes and
-enhancements to them, do not forget to "cc: " the person who primarily
-worked on that hierarchy in contrib/.
+Unless your patch is a very trivial and an obviously correct one,
+first send it with "To:" set to the mailing list, with "cc:" listing
+people who are involved in the area you are touching (the output from
+"git blame $path" and "git shortlog --no-merges $path" would help to
+identify them), to solicit comments and reviews. After the list
+reached a consensus that it is a good idea to apply the patch, re-send
+it with "To:" set to the maintainer and optionally "cc:" the list for
+inclusion. Do not forget to add trailers such as "Acked-by:",
+"Reviewed-by:" and "Tested-by:" after your "Signed-off-by:" line as
+necessary.
(4) Sign your work
people play with it without having to pick up and apply the patch to
their trees themselves.
+------------------------------------------------
+Know the status of your patch after submission
+
+* You can use Git itself to find out when your patch is merged in
+ master. 'git pull --rebase' will automatically skip already-applied
+ patches, and will let you know. This works only if you rebase on top
+ of the branch in which your patch has been merged (i.e. it will not
+ tell you if your patch is merged in pu if you rebase on top of
+ master).
+
+* Read the git mailing list, the maintainer regularly posts messages
+ entitled "What's cooking in git.git" and "What's in git.git" giving
+ the status of various proposed changes.
+
------------------------------------------------
MUA specific hints
(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:
Gmail
-----
-Submitting properly formatted patches via Gmail is simple now that
-IMAP support is available. First, edit your ~/.gitconfig to specify your
+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]
port = 993
sslverify = false
-Next, ensure that your Gmail settings are correct. In "Settings" the
-"Use Unicode (UTF-8) encoding for outgoing messages" should be checked.
+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:
-Once your commits are ready to send to the mailing list, run the following
-command to send the patch emails to your Gmail Drafts folder.
+ $ git format-patch --cover-letter -M --stdout origin/master | git imap-send
- $ git format-patch -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).
-Go to your Gmail account, open the Drafts folder, find the patch email, fill
-in the To: and CC: fields and send away!
projects / git.git / blobdiff