1GIT-FORMAT-PATCH(1)               Git Manual               GIT-FORMAT-PATCH(1)
2
3
4

NAME

6       git-format-patch - Prepare patches for e-mail submission
7

SYNOPSIS

9       git format-patch [-k] [(-o|--output-directory) <dir> | --stdout]
10                          [--no-thread | --thread[=<style>]]
11                          [(--attach|--inline)[=<boundary>] | --no-attach]
12                          [-s | --signoff]
13                          [--signature=<signature> | --no-signature]
14                          [--signature-file=<file>]
15                          [-n | --numbered | -N | --no-numbered]
16                          [--start-number <n>] [--numbered-files]
17                          [--in-reply-to=Message-Id] [--suffix=.<sfx>]
18                          [--ignore-if-in-upstream]
19                          [--rfc] [--subject-prefix=Subject-Prefix]
20                          [(--reroll-count|-v) <n>]
21                          [--to=<email>] [--cc=<email>]
22                          [--[no-]cover-letter] [--quiet] [--notes[=<ref>]]
23                          [--progress]
24                          [<common diff options>]
25                          [ <since> | <revision range> ]
26
27

DESCRIPTION

29       Prepare each commit with its patch in one file per commit, formatted to
30       resemble UNIX mailbox format. The output of this command is convenient
31       for e-mail submission or for use with git am.
32
33       There are two ways to specify which commits to operate on.
34
35        1. A single commit, <since>, specifies that the commits leading to the
36           tip of the current branch that are not in the history that leads to
37           the <since> to be output.
38
39        2. Generic <revision range> expression (see "SPECIFYING REVISIONS"
40           section in gitrevisions(7)) means the commits in the specified
41           range.
42
43       The first rule takes precedence in the case of a single <commit>. To
44       apply the second rule, i.e., format everything since the beginning of
45       history up until <commit>, use the --root option: git format-patch
46       --root <commit>. If you want to format only <commit> itself, you can do
47       this with git format-patch -1 <commit>.
48
49       By default, each output file is numbered sequentially from 1, and uses
50       the first line of the commit message (massaged for pathname safety) as
51       the filename. With the --numbered-files option, the output file names
52       will only be numbers, without the first line of the commit appended.
53       The names of the output files are printed to standard output, unless
54       the --stdout option is specified.
55
56       If -o is specified, output files are created in <dir>. Otherwise they
57       are created in the current working directory. The default path can be
58       set with the format.outputDirectory configuration option. The -o option
59       takes precedence over format.outputDirectory. To store patches in the
60       current working directory even when format.outputDirectory points
61       elsewhere, use -o ..
62
63       By default, the subject of a single patch is "[PATCH] " followed by the
64       concatenation of lines from the commit message up to the first blank
65       line (see the DISCUSSION section of git-commit(1)).
66
67       When multiple patches are output, the subject prefix will instead be
68       "[PATCH n/m] ". To force 1/1 to be added for a single patch, use -n. To
69       omit patch numbers from the subject, use -N.
70
71       If given --thread, git-format-patch will generate In-Reply-To and
72       References headers to make the second and subsequent patch mails appear
73       as replies to the first mail; this also generates a Message-Id header
74       to reference.
75

OPTIONS

77       -p, --no-stat
78           Generate plain patches without any diffstats.
79
80       -U<n>, --unified=<n>
81           Generate diffs with <n> lines of context instead of the usual
82           three.
83
84       --indent-heuristic
85           Enable the heuristic that shifts diff hunk boundaries to make
86           patches easier to read. This is the default.
87
88       --no-indent-heuristic
89           Disable the indent heuristic.
90
91       --minimal
92           Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is
93           produced.
94
95       --patience
96           Generate a diff using the "patience diff" algorithm.
97
98       --histogram
99           Generate a diff using the "histogram diff" algorithm.
100
101       --anchored=<text>
102           Generate a diff using the "anchored diff" algorithm.
103
104           This option may be specified more than once.
105
106           If a line exists in both the source and destination, exists only
107           once, and starts with this text, this algorithm attempts to prevent
108           it from appearing as a deletion or addition in the output. It uses
109           the "patience diff" algorithm internally.
110
111       --diff-algorithm={patience|minimal|histogram|myers}
112           Choose a diff algorithm. The variants are as follows:
113
114           default, myers
115               The basic greedy diff algorithm. Currently, this is the
116               default.
117
118           minimal
119               Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is
120               produced.
121
122           patience
123               Use "patience diff" algorithm when generating patches.
124
125           histogram
126               This algorithm extends the patience algorithm to "support
127               low-occurrence common elements".
128
129           For instance, if you configured the diff.algorithm variable to a
130           non-default value and want to use the default one, then you have to
131           use --diff-algorithm=default option.
132
133       --stat[=<width>[,<name-width>[,<count>]]]
134           Generate a diffstat. By default, as much space as necessary will be
135           used for the filename part, and the rest for the graph part.
136           Maximum width defaults to terminal width, or 80 columns if not
137           connected to a terminal, and can be overridden by <width>. The
138           width of the filename part can be limited by giving another width
139           <name-width> after a comma. The width of the graph part can be
140           limited by using --stat-graph-width=<width> (affects all commands
141           generating a stat graph) or by setting diff.statGraphWidth=<width>
142           (does not affect git format-patch). By giving a third parameter
143           <count>, you can limit the output to the first <count> lines,
144           followed by ...  if there are more.
145
146           These parameters can also be set individually with
147           --stat-width=<width>, --stat-name-width=<name-width> and
148           --stat-count=<count>.
149
150       --compact-summary
151           Output a condensed summary of extended header information such as
152           file creations or deletions ("new" or "gone", optionally "+l" if
153           it’s a symlink) and mode changes ("+x" or "-x" for adding or
154           removing executable bit respectively) in diffstat. The information
155           is put between the filename part and the graph part. Implies
156           --stat.
157
158       --numstat
159           Similar to --stat, but shows number of added and deleted lines in
160           decimal notation and pathname without abbreviation, to make it more
161           machine friendly. For binary files, outputs two - instead of saying
162           0 0.
163
164       --shortstat
165           Output only the last line of the --stat format containing total
166           number of modified files, as well as number of added and deleted
167           lines.
168
169       --dirstat[=<param1,param2,...>]
170           Output the distribution of relative amount of changes for each
171           sub-directory. The behavior of --dirstat can be customized by
172           passing it a comma separated list of parameters. The defaults are
173           controlled by the diff.dirstat configuration variable (see git-
174           config(1)). The following parameters are available:
175
176           changes
177               Compute the dirstat numbers by counting the lines that have
178               been removed from the source, or added to the destination. This
179               ignores the amount of pure code movements within a file. In
180               other words, rearranging lines in a file is not counted as much
181               as other changes. This is the default behavior when no
182               parameter is given.
183
184           lines
185               Compute the dirstat numbers by doing the regular line-based
186               diff analysis, and summing the removed/added line counts. (For
187               binary files, count 64-byte chunks instead, since binary files
188               have no natural concept of lines). This is a more expensive
189               --dirstat behavior than the changes behavior, but it does count
190               rearranged lines within a file as much as other changes. The
191               resulting output is consistent with what you get from the other
192               --*stat options.
193
194           files
195               Compute the dirstat numbers by counting the number of files
196               changed. Each changed file counts equally in the dirstat
197               analysis. This is the computationally cheapest --dirstat
198               behavior, since it does not have to look at the file contents
199               at all.
200
201           cumulative
202               Count changes in a child directory for the parent directory as
203               well. Note that when using cumulative, the sum of the
204               percentages reported may exceed 100%. The default
205               (non-cumulative) behavior can be specified with the
206               noncumulative parameter.
207
208           <limit>
209               An integer parameter specifies a cut-off percent (3% by
210               default). Directories contributing less than this percentage of
211               the changes are not shown in the output.
212
213           Example: The following will count changed files, while ignoring
214           directories with less than 10% of the total amount of changed
215           files, and accumulating child directory counts in the parent
216           directories: --dirstat=files,10,cumulative.
217
218       --summary
219           Output a condensed summary of extended header information such as
220           creations, renames and mode changes.
221
222       --no-renames
223           Turn off rename detection, even when the configuration file gives
224           the default to do so.
225
226       --full-index
227           Instead of the first handful of characters, show the full pre- and
228           post-image blob object names on the "index" line when generating
229           patch format output.
230
231       --binary
232           In addition to --full-index, output a binary diff that can be
233           applied with git-apply.
234
235       --abbrev[=<n>]
236           Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal object name in
237           diff-raw format output and diff-tree header lines, show only a
238           partial prefix. This is independent of the --full-index option
239           above, which controls the diff-patch output format. Non default
240           number of digits can be specified with --abbrev=<n>.
241
242       -B[<n>][/<m>], --break-rewrites[=[<n>][/<m>]]
243           Break complete rewrite changes into pairs of delete and create.
244           This serves two purposes:
245
246           It affects the way a change that amounts to a total rewrite of a
247           file not as a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with
248           a very few lines that happen to match textually as the context, but
249           as a single deletion of everything old followed by a single
250           insertion of everything new, and the number m controls this aspect
251           of the -B option (defaults to 60%).  -B/70% specifies that less
252           than 30% of the original should remain in the result for Git to
253           consider it a total rewrite (i.e. otherwise the resulting patch
254           will be a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with
255           context lines).
256
257           When used with -M, a totally-rewritten file is also considered as
258           the source of a rename (usually -M only considers a file that
259           disappeared as the source of a rename), and the number n controls
260           this aspect of the -B option (defaults to 50%).  -B20% specifies
261           that a change with addition and deletion compared to 20% or more of
262           the file’s size are eligible for being picked up as a possible
263           source of a rename to another file.
264
265       -M[<n>], --find-renames[=<n>]
266           Detect renames. If n is specified, it is a threshold on the
267           similarity index (i.e. amount of addition/deletions compared to the
268           file’s size). For example, -M90% means Git should consider a
269           delete/add pair to be a rename if more than 90% of the file hasn’t
270           changed. Without a % sign, the number is to be read as a fraction,
271           with a decimal point before it. I.e., -M5 becomes 0.5, and is thus
272           the same as -M50%. Similarly, -M05 is the same as -M5%. To limit
273           detection to exact renames, use -M100%. The default similarity
274           index is 50%.
275
276       -C[<n>], --find-copies[=<n>]
277           Detect copies as well as renames. See also --find-copies-harder. If
278           n is specified, it has the same meaning as for -M<n>.
279
280       --find-copies-harder
281           For performance reasons, by default, -C option finds copies only if
282           the original file of the copy was modified in the same changeset.
283           This flag makes the command inspect unmodified files as candidates
284           for the source of copy. This is a very expensive operation for
285           large projects, so use it with caution. Giving more than one -C
286           option has the same effect.
287
288       -D, --irreversible-delete
289           Omit the preimage for deletes, i.e. print only the header but not
290           the diff between the preimage and /dev/null. The resulting patch is
291           not meant to be applied with patch or git apply; this is solely for
292           people who want to just concentrate on reviewing the text after the
293           change. In addition, the output obviously lacks enough information
294           to apply such a patch in reverse, even manually, hence the name of
295           the option.
296
297           When used together with -B, omit also the preimage in the deletion
298           part of a delete/create pair.
299
300       -l<num>
301           The -M and -C options require O(n^2) processing time where n is the
302           number of potential rename/copy targets. This option prevents
303           rename/copy detection from running if the number of rename/copy
304           targets exceeds the specified number.
305
306       -O<orderfile>
307           Control the order in which files appear in the output. This
308           overrides the diff.orderFile configuration variable (see git-
309           config(1)). To cancel diff.orderFile, use -O/dev/null.
310
311           The output order is determined by the order of glob patterns in
312           <orderfile>. All files with pathnames that match the first pattern
313           are output first, all files with pathnames that match the second
314           pattern (but not the first) are output next, and so on. All files
315           with pathnames that do not match any pattern are output last, as if
316           there was an implicit match-all pattern at the end of the file. If
317           multiple pathnames have the same rank (they match the same pattern
318           but no earlier patterns), their output order relative to each other
319           is the normal order.
320
321           <orderfile> is parsed as follows:
322
323           ·   Blank lines are ignored, so they can be used as separators for
324               readability.
325
326           ·   Lines starting with a hash ("#") are ignored, so they can be
327               used for comments. Add a backslash ("\") to the beginning of
328               the pattern if it starts with a hash.
329
330           ·   Each other line contains a single pattern.
331
332           Patterns have the same syntax and semantics as patterns used for
333           fnmatch(3) without the FNM_PATHNAME flag, except a pathname also
334           matches a pattern if removing any number of the final pathname
335           components matches the pattern. For example, the pattern "foo*bar"
336           matches "fooasdfbar" and "foo/bar/baz/asdf" but not "foobarx".
337
338       -a, --text
339           Treat all files as text.
340
341       --ignore-cr-at-eol
342           Ignore carriage-return at the end of line when doing a comparison.
343
344       --ignore-space-at-eol
345           Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
346
347       -b, --ignore-space-change
348           Ignore changes in amount of whitespace. This ignores whitespace at
349           line end, and considers all other sequences of one or more
350           whitespace characters to be equivalent.
351
352       -w, --ignore-all-space
353           Ignore whitespace when comparing lines. This ignores differences
354           even if one line has whitespace where the other line has none.
355
356       --ignore-blank-lines
357           Ignore changes whose lines are all blank.
358
359       --inter-hunk-context=<lines>
360           Show the context between diff hunks, up to the specified number of
361           lines, thereby fusing hunks that are close to each other. Defaults
362           to diff.interHunkContext or 0 if the config option is unset.
363
364       -W, --function-context
365           Show whole surrounding functions of changes.
366
367       --ext-diff
368           Allow an external diff helper to be executed. If you set an
369           external diff driver with gitattributes(5), you need to use this
370           option with git-log(1) and friends.
371
372       --no-ext-diff
373           Disallow external diff drivers.
374
375       --textconv, --no-textconv
376           Allow (or disallow) external text conversion filters to be run when
377           comparing binary files. See gitattributes(5) for details. Because
378           textconv filters are typically a one-way conversion, the resulting
379           diff is suitable for human consumption, but cannot be applied. For
380           this reason, textconv filters are enabled by default only for git-
381           diff(1) and git-log(1), but not for git-format-patch(1) or diff
382           plumbing commands.
383
384       --ignore-submodules[=<when>]
385           Ignore changes to submodules in the diff generation. <when> can be
386           either "none", "untracked", "dirty" or "all", which is the default.
387           Using "none" will consider the submodule modified when it either
388           contains untracked or modified files or its HEAD differs from the
389           commit recorded in the superproject and can be used to override any
390           settings of the ignore option in git-config(1) or gitmodules(5).
391           When "untracked" is used submodules are not considered dirty when
392           they only contain untracked content (but they are still scanned for
393           modified content). Using "dirty" ignores all changes to the work
394           tree of submodules, only changes to the commits stored in the
395           superproject are shown (this was the behavior until 1.7.0). Using
396           "all" hides all changes to submodules.
397
398       --src-prefix=<prefix>
399           Show the given source prefix instead of "a/".
400
401       --dst-prefix=<prefix>
402           Show the given destination prefix instead of "b/".
403
404       --no-prefix
405           Do not show any source or destination prefix.
406
407       --line-prefix=<prefix>
408           Prepend an additional prefix to every line of output.
409
410       --ita-invisible-in-index
411           By default entries added by "git add -N" appear as an existing
412           empty file in "git diff" and a new file in "git diff --cached".
413           This option makes the entry appear as a new file in "git diff" and
414           non-existent in "git diff --cached". This option could be reverted
415           with --ita-visible-in-index. Both options are experimental and
416           could be removed in future.
417
418       For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also
419       gitdiffcore(7).
420
421       -<n>
422           Prepare patches from the topmost <n> commits.
423
424       -o <dir>, --output-directory <dir>
425           Use <dir> to store the resulting files, instead of the current
426           working directory.
427
428       -n, --numbered
429           Name output in [PATCH n/m] format, even with a single patch.
430
431       -N, --no-numbered
432           Name output in [PATCH] format.
433
434       --start-number <n>
435           Start numbering the patches at <n> instead of 1.
436
437       --numbered-files
438           Output file names will be a simple number sequence without the
439           default first line of the commit appended.
440
441       -k, --keep-subject
442           Do not strip/add [PATCH] from the first line of the commit log
443           message.
444
445       -s, --signoff
446           Add Signed-off-by: line to the commit message, using the committer
447           identity of yourself. See the signoff option in git-commit(1) for
448           more information.
449
450       --stdout
451           Print all commits to the standard output in mbox format, instead of
452           creating a file for each one.
453
454       --attach[=<boundary>]
455           Create multipart/mixed attachment, the first part of which is the
456           commit message and the patch itself in the second part, with
457           Content-Disposition: attachment.
458
459       --no-attach
460           Disable the creation of an attachment, overriding the configuration
461           setting.
462
463       --inline[=<boundary>]
464           Create multipart/mixed attachment, the first part of which is the
465           commit message and the patch itself in the second part, with
466           Content-Disposition: inline.
467
468       --thread[=<style>], --no-thread
469           Controls addition of In-Reply-To and References headers to make the
470           second and subsequent mails appear as replies to the first. Also
471           controls generation of the Message-Id header to reference.
472
473           The optional <style> argument can be either shallow or deep.
474           shallow threading makes every mail a reply to the head of the
475           series, where the head is chosen from the cover letter, the
476           --in-reply-to, and the first patch mail, in this order.  deep
477           threading makes every mail a reply to the previous one.
478
479           The default is --no-thread, unless the format.thread configuration
480           is set. If --thread is specified without a style, it defaults to
481           the style specified by format.thread if any, or else shallow.
482
483           Beware that the default for git send-email is to thread emails
484           itself. If you want git format-patch to take care of threading, you
485           will want to ensure that threading is disabled for git send-email.
486
487       --in-reply-to=Message-Id
488           Make the first mail (or all the mails with --no-thread) appear as a
489           reply to the given Message-Id, which avoids breaking threads to
490           provide a new patch series.
491
492       --ignore-if-in-upstream
493           Do not include a patch that matches a commit in <until>..<since>.
494           This will examine all patches reachable from <since> but not from
495           <until> and compare them with the patches being generated, and any
496           patch that matches is ignored.
497
498       --subject-prefix=<Subject-Prefix>
499           Instead of the standard [PATCH] prefix in the subject line, instead
500           use [<Subject-Prefix>]. This allows for useful naming of a patch
501           series, and can be combined with the --numbered option.
502
503       --rfc
504           Alias for --subject-prefix="RFC PATCH". RFC means "Request For
505           Comments"; use this when sending an experimental patch for
506           discussion rather than application.
507
508       -v <n>, --reroll-count=<n>
509           Mark the series as the <n>-th iteration of the topic. The output
510           filenames have v<n> prepended to them, and the subject prefix
511           ("PATCH" by default, but configurable via the --subject-prefix
512           option) has ` v<n>` appended to it. E.g.  --reroll-count=4 may
513           produce v4-0001-add-makefile.patch file that has "Subject: [PATCH
514           v4 1/20] Add makefile" in it.
515
516       --to=<email>
517           Add a To: header to the email headers. This is in addition to any
518           configured headers, and may be used multiple times. The negated
519           form --no-to discards all To: headers added so far (from config or
520           command line).
521
522       --cc=<email>
523           Add a Cc: header to the email headers. This is in addition to any
524           configured headers, and may be used multiple times. The negated
525           form --no-cc discards all Cc: headers added so far (from config or
526           command line).
527
528       --from, --from=<ident>
529           Use ident in the From: header of each commit email. If the author
530           ident of the commit is not textually identical to the provided
531           ident, place a From: header in the body of the message with the
532           original author. If no ident is given, use the committer ident.
533
534           Note that this option is only useful if you are actually sending
535           the emails and want to identify yourself as the sender, but retain
536           the original author (and git am will correctly pick up the in-body
537           header). Note also that git send-email already handles this
538           transformation for you, and this option should not be used if you
539           are feeding the result to git send-email.
540
541       --add-header=<header>
542           Add an arbitrary header to the email headers. This is in addition
543           to any configured headers, and may be used multiple times. For
544           example, --add-header="Organization: git-foo". The negated form
545           --no-add-header discards all (To:, Cc:, and custom) headers added
546           so far from config or command line.
547
548       --[no-]cover-letter
549           In addition to the patches, generate a cover letter file containing
550           the branch description, shortlog and the overall diffstat. You can
551           fill in a description in the file before sending it out.
552
553       --notes[=<ref>]
554           Append the notes (see git-notes(1)) for the commit after the
555           three-dash line.
556
557           The expected use case of this is to write supporting explanation
558           for the commit that does not belong to the commit log message
559           proper, and include it with the patch submission. While one can
560           simply write these explanations after format-patch has run but
561           before sending, keeping them as Git notes allows them to be
562           maintained between versions of the patch series (but see the
563           discussion of the notes.rewrite configuration options in git-
564           notes(1) to use this workflow).
565
566       --[no-]signature=<signature>
567           Add a signature to each message produced. Per RFC 3676 the
568           signature is separated from the body by a line with '-- ' on it. If
569           the signature option is omitted the signature defaults to the Git
570           version number.
571
572       --signature-file=<file>
573           Works just like --signature except the signature is read from a
574           file.
575
576       --suffix=.<sfx>
577           Instead of using .patch as the suffix for generated filenames, use
578           specified suffix. A common alternative is --suffix=.txt. Leaving
579           this empty will remove the .patch suffix.
580
581           Note that the leading character does not have to be a dot; for
582           example, you can use --suffix=-patch to get
583           0001-description-of-my-change-patch.
584
585       -q, --quiet
586           Do not print the names of the generated files to standard output.
587
588       --no-binary
589           Do not output contents of changes in binary files, instead display
590           a notice that those files changed. Patches generated using this
591           option cannot be applied properly, but they are still useful for
592           code review.
593
594       --zero-commit
595           Output an all-zero hash in each patch’s From header instead of the
596           hash of the commit.
597
598       --base=<commit>
599           Record the base tree information to identify the state the patch
600           series applies to. See the BASE TREE INFORMATION section below for
601           details.
602
603       --root
604           Treat the revision argument as a <revision range>, even if it is
605           just a single commit (that would normally be treated as a <since>).
606           Note that root commits included in the specified range are always
607           formatted as creation patches, independently of this flag.
608
609       --progress
610           Show progress reports on stderr as patches are generated.
611

CONFIGURATION

613       You can specify extra mail header lines to be added to each message,
614       defaults for the subject prefix and file suffix, number patches when
615       outputting more than one patch, add "To" or "Cc:" headers, configure
616       attachments, and sign off patches with configuration variables.
617
618           [format]
619                   headers = "Organization: git-foo\n"
620                   subjectPrefix = CHANGE
621                   suffix = .txt
622                   numbered = auto
623                   to = <email>
624                   cc = <email>
625                   attach [ = mime-boundary-string ]
626                   signOff = true
627                   coverletter = auto
628
629

DISCUSSION

631       The patch produced by git format-patch is in UNIX mailbox format, with
632       a fixed "magic" time stamp to indicate that the file is output from
633       format-patch rather than a real mailbox, like so:
634
635           From 8f72bad1baf19a53459661343e21d6491c3908d3 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
636           From: Tony Luck <tony.luck@intel.com>
637           Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 11:42:54 -0700
638           Subject: [PATCH] =?UTF-8?q?[IA64]=20Put=20ia64=20config=20files=20on=20the=20?=
639            =?UTF-8?q?Uwe=20Kleine-K=C3=B6nig=20diet?=
640           MIME-Version: 1.0
641           Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
642           Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
643
644           arch/arm config files were slimmed down using a python script
645           (See commit c2330e286f68f1c408b4aa6515ba49d57f05beae comment)
646
647           Do the same for ia64 so we can have sleek & trim looking
648           ...
649
650
651       Typically it will be placed in a MUA’s drafts folder, edited to add
652       timely commentary that should not go in the changelog after the three
653       dashes, and then sent as a message whose body, in our example, starts
654       with "arch/arm config files were...". On the receiving end, readers can
655       save interesting patches in a UNIX mailbox and apply them with git-
656       am(1).
657
658       When a patch is part of an ongoing discussion, the patch generated by
659       git format-patch can be tweaked to take advantage of the git am
660       --scissors feature. After your response to the discussion comes a line
661       that consists solely of "-- >8 --" (scissors and perforation), followed
662       by the patch with unnecessary header fields removed:
663
664           ...
665           > So we should do such-and-such.
666
667           Makes sense to me.  How about this patch?
668
669           -- >8 --
670           Subject: [IA64] Put ia64 config files on the Uwe Kleine-König diet
671
672           arch/arm config files were slimmed down using a python script
673           ...
674
675
676       When sending a patch this way, most often you are sending your own
677       patch, so in addition to the "From $SHA1 $magic_timestamp" marker you
678       should omit From: and Date: lines from the patch file. The patch title
679       is likely to be different from the subject of the discussion the patch
680       is in response to, so it is likely that you would want to keep the
681       Subject: line, like the example above.
682
683   Checking for patch corruption
684       Many mailers if not set up properly will corrupt whitespace. Here are
685       two common types of corruption:
686
687       ·   Empty context lines that do not have any whitespace.
688
689       ·   Non-empty context lines that have one extra whitespace at the
690           beginning.
691
692       One way to test if your MUA is set up correctly is:
693
694       ·   Send the patch to yourself, exactly the way you would, except with
695           To: and Cc: lines that do not contain the list and maintainer
696           address.
697
698       ·   Save that patch to a file in UNIX mailbox format. Call it a.patch,
699           say.
700
701       ·   Apply it:
702
703               $ git fetch <project> master:test-apply
704               $ git checkout test-apply
705               $ git reset --hard
706               $ git am a.patch
707
708       If it does not apply correctly, there can be various reasons.
709
710       ·   The patch itself does not apply cleanly. That is bad but does not
711           have much to do with your MUA. You might want to rebase the patch
712           with git-rebase(1) before regenerating it in this case.
713
714       ·   The MUA corrupted your patch; "am" would complain that the patch
715           does not apply. Look in the .git/rebase-apply/ subdirectory and see
716           what patch file contains and check for the common corruption
717           patterns mentioned above.
718
719       ·   While at it, check the info and final-commit files as well. If what
720           is in final-commit is not exactly what you would want to see in the
721           commit log message, it is very likely that the receiver would end
722           up hand editing the log message when applying your patch. Things
723           like "Hi, this is my first patch.\n" in the patch e-mail should
724           come after the three-dash line that signals the end of the commit
725           message.
726

MUA-SPECIFIC HINTS

728       Here are some hints on how to successfully submit patches inline using
729       various mailers.
730
731   GMail
732       GMail does not have any way to turn off line wrapping in the web
733       interface, so it will mangle any emails that you send. You can however
734       use "git send-email" and send your patches through the GMail SMTP
735       server, or use any IMAP email client to connect to the google IMAP
736       server and forward the emails through that.
737
738       For hints on using git send-email to send your patches through the
739       GMail SMTP server, see the EXAMPLE section of git-send-email(1).
740
741       For hints on submission using the IMAP interface, see the EXAMPLE
742       section of git-imap-send(1).
743
744   Thunderbird
745       By default, Thunderbird will both wrap emails as well as flag them as
746       being format=flowed, both of which will make the resulting email
747       unusable by Git.
748
749       There are three different approaches: use an add-on to turn off line
750       wraps, configure Thunderbird to not mangle patches, or use an external
751       editor to keep Thunderbird from mangling the patches.
752
753       Approach #1 (add-on)
754           Install the Toggle Word Wrap add-on that is available from
755           https://addons.mozilla.org/thunderbird/addon/toggle-word-wrap/ It
756           adds a menu entry "Enable Word Wrap" in the composer’s "Options"
757           menu that you can tick off. Now you can compose the message as you
758           otherwise do (cut + paste, git format-patch | git imap-send, etc),
759           but you have to insert line breaks manually in any text that you
760           type.
761
762       Approach #2 (configuration)
763           Three steps:
764
765            1. Configure your mail server composition as plain text:
766               Edit...Account Settings...Composition & Addressing, uncheck
767               "Compose Messages in HTML".
768
769            2. Configure your general composition window to not wrap.
770
771               In Thunderbird 2: Edit..Preferences..Composition, wrap plain
772               text messages at 0
773
774               In Thunderbird 3: Edit..Preferences..Advanced..Config Editor.
775               Search for "mail.wrap_long_lines". Toggle it to make sure it is
776               set to false. Also, search for "mailnews.wraplength" and set
777               the value to 0.
778
779            3. Disable the use of format=flowed:
780               Edit..Preferences..Advanced..Config Editor. Search for
781               "mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed". Toggle it to make sure it is
782               set to false.
783
784           After that is done, you should be able to compose email as you
785           otherwise would (cut + paste, git format-patch | git imap-send,
786           etc), and the patches will not be mangled.
787
788       Approach #3 (external editor)
789           The following Thunderbird extensions are needed: AboutConfig from
790           http://aboutconfig.mozdev.org/ and External Editor from
791           http://globs.org/articles.php?lng=en&pg=8
792
793            1. Prepare the patch as a text file using your method of choice.
794
795            2. Before opening a compose window, use Edit→Account Settings to
796               uncheck the "Compose messages in HTML format" setting in the
797               "Composition & Addressing" panel of the account to be used to
798               send the patch.
799
800            3. In the main Thunderbird window, before you open the compose
801               window for the patch, use Tools→about:config to set the
802               following to the indicated values:
803
804                           mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed  => false
805                           mailnews.wraplength             => 0
806
807
808            4. Open a compose window and click the external editor icon.
809
810            5. In the external editor window, read in the patch file and exit
811               the editor normally.
812
813           Side note: it may be possible to do step 2 with about:config and
814           the following settings but no one’s tried yet.
815
816                       mail.html_compose                       => false
817                       mail.identity.default.compose_html      => false
818                       mail.identity.id?.compose_html          => false
819
820
821           There is a script in contrib/thunderbird-patch-inline which can
822           help you include patches with Thunderbird in an easy way. To use
823           it, do the steps above and then use the script as the external
824           editor.
825
826   KMail
827       This should help you to submit patches inline using KMail.
828
829        1. Prepare the patch as a text file.
830
831        2. Click on New Mail.
832
833        3. Go under "Options" in the Composer window and be sure that "Word
834           wrap" is not set.
835
836        4. Use Message → Insert file... and insert the patch.
837
838        5. Back in the compose window: add whatever other text you wish to the
839           message, complete the addressing and subject fields, and press
840           send.
841

BASE TREE INFORMATION

843       The base tree information block is used for maintainers or third party
844       testers to know the exact state the patch series applies to. It
845       consists of the base commit, which is a well-known commit that is part
846       of the stable part of the project history everybody else works off of,
847       and zero or more prerequisite patches, which are well-known patches in
848       flight that is not yet part of the base commit that need to be applied
849       on top of base commit in topological order before the patches can be
850       applied.
851
852       The base commit is shown as "base-commit: " followed by the 40-hex of
853       the commit object name. A prerequisite patch is shown as
854       "prerequisite-patch-id: " followed by the 40-hex patch id, which can be
855       obtained by passing the patch through the git patch-id --stable
856       command.
857
858       Imagine that on top of the public commit P, you applied well-known
859       patches X, Y and Z from somebody else, and then built your three-patch
860       series A, B, C, the history would be like:
861
862           ---P---X---Y---Z---A---B---C
863
864       With git format-patch --base=P -3 C (or variants thereof, e.g. with
865       --cover-letter or using Z..C instead of -3 C to specify the range), the
866       base tree information block is shown at the end of the first message
867       the command outputs (either the first patch, or the cover letter), like
868       this:
869
870           base-commit: P
871           prerequisite-patch-id: X
872           prerequisite-patch-id: Y
873           prerequisite-patch-id: Z
874
875
876       For non-linear topology, such as
877
878           ---P---X---A---M---C
879               \         /
880                Y---Z---B
881
882       You can also use git format-patch --base=P -3 C to generate patches for
883       A, B and C, and the identifiers for P, X, Y, Z are appended at the end
884       of the first message.
885
886       If set --base=auto in cmdline, it will track base commit automatically,
887       the base commit will be the merge base of tip commit of the
888       remote-tracking branch and revision-range specified in cmdline. For a
889       local branch, you need to track a remote branch by git branch
890       --set-upstream-to before using this option.
891

EXAMPLES

893       ·   Extract commits between revisions R1 and R2, and apply them on top
894           of the current branch using git am to cherry-pick them:
895
896               $ git format-patch -k --stdout R1..R2 | git am -3 -k
897
898
899       ·   Extract all commits which are in the current branch but not in the
900           origin branch:
901
902               $ git format-patch origin
903
904           For each commit a separate file is created in the current
905           directory.
906
907       ·   Extract all commits that lead to origin since the inception of the
908           project:
909
910               $ git format-patch --root origin
911
912
913       ·   The same as the previous one:
914
915               $ git format-patch -M -B origin
916
917           Additionally, it detects and handles renames and complete rewrites
918           intelligently to produce a renaming patch. A renaming patch reduces
919           the amount of text output, and generally makes it easier to review.
920           Note that non-Git "patch" programs won’t understand renaming
921           patches, so use it only when you know the recipient uses Git to
922           apply your patch.
923
924       ·   Extract three topmost commits from the current branch and format
925           them as e-mailable patches:
926
927               $ git format-patch -3
928
929

SEE ALSO

931       git-am(1), git-send-email(1)
932

GIT

934       Part of the git(1) suite
935
936
937
938Git 2.18.1                        05/14/2019               GIT-FORMAT-PATCH(1)
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