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                          [--cover-from-description=<mode>]
20                          [--rfc] [--subject-prefix=<subject prefix>]
21                          [(--reroll-count|-v) <n>]
22                          [--to=<email>] [--cc=<email>]
23                          [--[no-]cover-letter] [--quiet]
24                          [--[no-]encode-email-headers]
25                          [--no-notes | --notes[=<ref>]]
26                          [--interdiff=<previous>]
27                          [--range-diff=<previous> [--creation-factor=<percent>]]
28                          [--filename-max-length=<n>]
29                          [--progress]
30                          [<common diff options>]
31                          [ <since> | <revision range> ]
32

DESCRIPTION

34       Prepare each non-merge commit with its "patch" in one "message" per
35       commit, formatted to resemble a UNIX mailbox. The output of this
36       command is convenient for e-mail submission or for use with git am.
37
38       A "message" generated by the command consists of three parts:
39
40       •   A brief metadata header that begins with From <commit> with a fixed
41           Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 datestamp to help programs like "file(1)"
42           to recognize that the file is an output from this command, fields
43           that record the author identity, the author date, and the title of
44           the change (taken from the first paragraph of the commit log
45           message).
46
47       •   The second and subsequent paragraphs of the commit log message.
48
49       •   The "patch", which is the "diff -p --stat" output (see git-diff(1))
50           between the commit and its parent.
51
52       The log message and the patch is separated by a line with a three-dash
53       line.
54
55       There are two ways to specify which commits to operate on.
56
57        1. A single commit, <since>, specifies that the commits leading to the
58           tip of the current branch that are not in the history that leads to
59           the <since> to be output.
60
61        2. Generic <revision range> expression (see "SPECIFYING REVISIONS"
62           section in gitrevisions(7)) means the commits in the specified
63           range.
64
65       The first rule takes precedence in the case of a single <commit>. To
66       apply the second rule, i.e., format everything since the beginning of
67       history up until <commit>, use the --root option: git format-patch
68       --root <commit>. If you want to format only <commit> itself, you can do
69       this with git format-patch -1 <commit>.
70
71       By default, each output file is numbered sequentially from 1, and uses
72       the first line of the commit message (massaged for pathname safety) as
73       the filename. With the --numbered-files option, the output file names
74       will only be numbers, without the first line of the commit appended.
75       The names of the output files are printed to standard output, unless
76       the --stdout option is specified.
77
78       If -o is specified, output files are created in <dir>. Otherwise they
79       are created in the current working directory. The default path can be
80       set with the format.outputDirectory configuration option. The -o option
81       takes precedence over format.outputDirectory. To store patches in the
82       current working directory even when format.outputDirectory points
83       elsewhere, use -o .. All directory components will be created.
84
85       By default, the subject of a single patch is "[PATCH] " followed by the
86       concatenation of lines from the commit message up to the first blank
87       line (see the DISCUSSION section of git-commit(1)).
88
89       When multiple patches are output, the subject prefix will instead be
90       "[PATCH n/m] ". To force 1/1 to be added for a single patch, use -n. To
91       omit patch numbers from the subject, use -N.
92
93       If given --thread, git-format-patch will generate In-Reply-To and
94       References headers to make the second and subsequent patch mails appear
95       as replies to the first mail; this also generates a Message-Id header
96       to reference.
97

OPTIONS

99       -p, --no-stat
100           Generate plain patches without any diffstats.
101
102       -U<n>, --unified=<n>
103           Generate diffs with <n> lines of context instead of the usual
104           three.
105
106       --output=<file>
107           Output to a specific file instead of stdout.
108
109       --output-indicator-new=<char>, --output-indicator-old=<char>,
110       --output-indicator-context=<char>
111           Specify the character used to indicate new, old or context lines in
112           the generated patch. Normally they are +, - and ' ' respectively.
113
114       --indent-heuristic
115           Enable the heuristic that shifts diff hunk boundaries to make
116           patches easier to read. This is the default.
117
118       --no-indent-heuristic
119           Disable the indent heuristic.
120
121       --minimal
122           Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is
123           produced.
124
125       --patience
126           Generate a diff using the "patience diff" algorithm.
127
128       --histogram
129           Generate a diff using the "histogram diff" algorithm.
130
131       --anchored=<text>
132           Generate a diff using the "anchored diff" algorithm.
133
134           This option may be specified more than once.
135
136           If a line exists in both the source and destination, exists only
137           once, and starts with this text, this algorithm attempts to prevent
138           it from appearing as a deletion or addition in the output. It uses
139           the "patience diff" algorithm internally.
140
141       --diff-algorithm={patience|minimal|histogram|myers}
142           Choose a diff algorithm. The variants are as follows:
143
144           default, myers
145               The basic greedy diff algorithm. Currently, this is the
146               default.
147
148           minimal
149               Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is
150               produced.
151
152           patience
153               Use "patience diff" algorithm when generating patches.
154
155           histogram
156               This algorithm extends the patience algorithm to "support
157               low-occurrence common elements".
158
159           For instance, if you configured the diff.algorithm variable to a
160           non-default value and want to use the default one, then you have to
161           use --diff-algorithm=default option.
162
163       --stat[=<width>[,<name-width>[,<count>]]]
164           Generate a diffstat. By default, as much space as necessary will be
165           used for the filename part, and the rest for the graph part.
166           Maximum width defaults to terminal width, or 80 columns if not
167           connected to a terminal, and can be overridden by <width>. The
168           width of the filename part can be limited by giving another width
169           <name-width> after a comma. The width of the graph part can be
170           limited by using --stat-graph-width=<width> (affects all commands
171           generating a stat graph) or by setting diff.statGraphWidth=<width>
172           (does not affect git format-patch). By giving a third parameter
173           <count>, you can limit the output to the first <count> lines,
174           followed by ...  if there are more.
175
176           These parameters can also be set individually with
177           --stat-width=<width>, --stat-name-width=<name-width> and
178           --stat-count=<count>.
179
180       --compact-summary
181           Output a condensed summary of extended header information such as
182           file creations or deletions ("new" or "gone", optionally "+l" if
183           it’s a symlink) and mode changes ("+x" or "-x" for adding or
184           removing executable bit respectively) in diffstat. The information
185           is put between the filename part and the graph part. Implies
186           --stat.
187
188       --numstat
189           Similar to --stat, but shows number of added and deleted lines in
190           decimal notation and pathname without abbreviation, to make it more
191           machine friendly. For binary files, outputs two - instead of saying
192           0 0.
193
194       --shortstat
195           Output only the last line of the --stat format containing total
196           number of modified files, as well as number of added and deleted
197           lines.
198
199       -X[<param1,param2,...>], --dirstat[=<param1,param2,...>]
200           Output the distribution of relative amount of changes for each
201           sub-directory. The behavior of --dirstat can be customized by
202           passing it a comma separated list of parameters. The defaults are
203           controlled by the diff.dirstat configuration variable (see git-
204           config(1)). The following parameters are available:
205
206           changes
207               Compute the dirstat numbers by counting the lines that have
208               been removed from the source, or added to the destination. This
209               ignores the amount of pure code movements within a file. In
210               other words, rearranging lines in a file is not counted as much
211               as other changes. This is the default behavior when no
212               parameter is given.
213
214           lines
215               Compute the dirstat numbers by doing the regular line-based
216               diff analysis, and summing the removed/added line counts. (For
217               binary files, count 64-byte chunks instead, since binary files
218               have no natural concept of lines). This is a more expensive
219               --dirstat behavior than the changes behavior, but it does count
220               rearranged lines within a file as much as other changes. The
221               resulting output is consistent with what you get from the other
222               --*stat options.
223
224           files
225               Compute the dirstat numbers by counting the number of files
226               changed. Each changed file counts equally in the dirstat
227               analysis. This is the computationally cheapest --dirstat
228               behavior, since it does not have to look at the file contents
229               at all.
230
231           cumulative
232               Count changes in a child directory for the parent directory as
233               well. Note that when using cumulative, the sum of the
234               percentages reported may exceed 100%. The default
235               (non-cumulative) behavior can be specified with the
236               noncumulative parameter.
237
238           <limit>
239               An integer parameter specifies a cut-off percent (3% by
240               default). Directories contributing less than this percentage of
241               the changes are not shown in the output.
242
243           Example: The following will count changed files, while ignoring
244           directories with less than 10% of the total amount of changed
245           files, and accumulating child directory counts in the parent
246           directories: --dirstat=files,10,cumulative.
247
248       --cumulative
249           Synonym for --dirstat=cumulative
250
251       --dirstat-by-file[=<param1,param2>...]
252           Synonym for --dirstat=files,param1,param2...
253
254       --summary
255           Output a condensed summary of extended header information such as
256           creations, renames and mode changes.
257
258       --no-renames
259           Turn off rename detection, even when the configuration file gives
260           the default to do so.
261
262       --[no-]rename-empty
263           Whether to use empty blobs as rename source.
264
265       --full-index
266           Instead of the first handful of characters, show the full pre- and
267           post-image blob object names on the "index" line when generating
268           patch format output.
269
270       --binary
271           In addition to --full-index, output a binary diff that can be
272           applied with git-apply.
273
274       --abbrev[=<n>]
275           Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal object name in
276           diff-raw format output and diff-tree header lines, show the
277           shortest prefix that is at least <n> hexdigits long that uniquely
278           refers the object. In diff-patch output format, --full-index takes
279           higher precedence, i.e. if --full-index is specified, full blob
280           names will be shown regardless of --abbrev. Non default number of
281           digits can be specified with --abbrev=<n>.
282
283       -B[<n>][/<m>], --break-rewrites[=[<n>][/<m>]]
284           Break complete rewrite changes into pairs of delete and create.
285           This serves two purposes:
286
287           It affects the way a change that amounts to a total rewrite of a
288           file not as a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with
289           a very few lines that happen to match textually as the context, but
290           as a single deletion of everything old followed by a single
291           insertion of everything new, and the number m controls this aspect
292           of the -B option (defaults to 60%).  -B/70% specifies that less
293           than 30% of the original should remain in the result for Git to
294           consider it a total rewrite (i.e. otherwise the resulting patch
295           will be a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with
296           context lines).
297
298           When used with -M, a totally-rewritten file is also considered as
299           the source of a rename (usually -M only considers a file that
300           disappeared as the source of a rename), and the number n controls
301           this aspect of the -B option (defaults to 50%).  -B20% specifies
302           that a change with addition and deletion compared to 20% or more of
303           the file’s size are eligible for being picked up as a possible
304           source of a rename to another file.
305
306       -M[<n>], --find-renames[=<n>]
307           Detect renames. If n is specified, it is a threshold on the
308           similarity index (i.e. amount of addition/deletions compared to the
309           file’s size). For example, -M90% means Git should consider a
310           delete/add pair to be a rename if more than 90% of the file hasn’t
311           changed. Without a % sign, the number is to be read as a fraction,
312           with a decimal point before it. I.e., -M5 becomes 0.5, and is thus
313           the same as -M50%. Similarly, -M05 is the same as -M5%. To limit
314           detection to exact renames, use -M100%. The default similarity
315           index is 50%.
316
317       -C[<n>], --find-copies[=<n>]
318           Detect copies as well as renames. See also --find-copies-harder. If
319           n is specified, it has the same meaning as for -M<n>.
320
321       --find-copies-harder
322           For performance reasons, by default, -C option finds copies only if
323           the original file of the copy was modified in the same changeset.
324           This flag makes the command inspect unmodified files as candidates
325           for the source of copy. This is a very expensive operation for
326           large projects, so use it with caution. Giving more than one -C
327           option has the same effect.
328
329       -D, --irreversible-delete
330           Omit the preimage for deletes, i.e. print only the header but not
331           the diff between the preimage and /dev/null. The resulting patch is
332           not meant to be applied with patch or git apply; this is solely for
333           people who want to just concentrate on reviewing the text after the
334           change. In addition, the output obviously lacks enough information
335           to apply such a patch in reverse, even manually, hence the name of
336           the option.
337
338           When used together with -B, omit also the preimage in the deletion
339           part of a delete/create pair.
340
341       -l<num>
342           The -M and -C options involve some preliminary steps that can
343           detect subsets of renames/copies cheaply, followed by an exhaustive
344           fallback portion that compares all remaining unpaired destinations
345           to all relevant sources. (For renames, only remaining unpaired
346           sources are relevant; for copies, all original sources are
347           relevant.) For N sources and destinations, this exhaustive check is
348           O(N^2). This option prevents the exhaustive portion of rename/copy
349           detection from running if the number of source/destination files
350           involved exceeds the specified number. Defaults to
351           diff.renameLimit. Note that a value of 0 is treated as unlimited.
352
353       -O<orderfile>
354           Control the order in which files appear in the output. This
355           overrides the diff.orderFile configuration variable (see git-
356           config(1)). To cancel diff.orderFile, use -O/dev/null.
357
358           The output order is determined by the order of glob patterns in
359           <orderfile>. All files with pathnames that match the first pattern
360           are output first, all files with pathnames that match the second
361           pattern (but not the first) are output next, and so on. All files
362           with pathnames that do not match any pattern are output last, as if
363           there was an implicit match-all pattern at the end of the file. If
364           multiple pathnames have the same rank (they match the same pattern
365           but no earlier patterns), their output order relative to each other
366           is the normal order.
367
368           <orderfile> is parsed as follows:
369
370           •   Blank lines are ignored, so they can be used as separators for
371               readability.
372
373           •   Lines starting with a hash ("#") are ignored, so they can be
374               used for comments. Add a backslash ("\") to the beginning of
375               the pattern if it starts with a hash.
376
377           •   Each other line contains a single pattern.
378
379           Patterns have the same syntax and semantics as patterns used for
380           fnmatch(3) without the FNM_PATHNAME flag, except a pathname also
381           matches a pattern if removing any number of the final pathname
382           components matches the pattern. For example, the pattern "foo*bar"
383           matches "fooasdfbar" and "foo/bar/baz/asdf" but not "foobarx".
384
385       --skip-to=<file>, --rotate-to=<file>
386           Discard the files before the named <file> from the output (i.e.
387           skip to), or move them to the end of the output (i.e.  rotate to).
388           These were invented primarily for use of the git difftool command,
389           and may not be very useful otherwise.
390
391       --relative[=<path>], --no-relative
392           When run from a subdirectory of the project, it can be told to
393           exclude changes outside the directory and show pathnames relative
394           to it with this option. When you are not in a subdirectory (e.g. in
395           a bare repository), you can name which subdirectory to make the
396           output relative to by giving a <path> as an argument.
397           --no-relative can be used to countermand both diff.relative config
398           option and previous --relative.
399
400       -a, --text
401           Treat all files as text.
402
403       --ignore-cr-at-eol
404           Ignore carriage-return at the end of line when doing a comparison.
405
406       --ignore-space-at-eol
407           Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
408
409       -b, --ignore-space-change
410           Ignore changes in amount of whitespace. This ignores whitespace at
411           line end, and considers all other sequences of one or more
412           whitespace characters to be equivalent.
413
414       -w, --ignore-all-space
415           Ignore whitespace when comparing lines. This ignores differences
416           even if one line has whitespace where the other line has none.
417
418       --ignore-blank-lines
419           Ignore changes whose lines are all blank.
420
421       -I<regex>, --ignore-matching-lines=<regex>
422           Ignore changes whose all lines match <regex>. This option may be
423           specified more than once.
424
425       --inter-hunk-context=<lines>
426           Show the context between diff hunks, up to the specified number of
427           lines, thereby fusing hunks that are close to each other. Defaults
428           to diff.interHunkContext or 0 if the config option is unset.
429
430       -W, --function-context
431           Show whole function as context lines for each change. The function
432           names are determined in the same way as git diff works out patch
433           hunk headers (see Defining a custom hunk-header in
434           gitattributes(5)).
435
436       --ext-diff
437           Allow an external diff helper to be executed. If you set an
438           external diff driver with gitattributes(5), you need to use this
439           option with git-log(1) and friends.
440
441       --no-ext-diff
442           Disallow external diff drivers.
443
444       --textconv, --no-textconv
445           Allow (or disallow) external text conversion filters to be run when
446           comparing binary files. See gitattributes(5) for details. Because
447           textconv filters are typically a one-way conversion, the resulting
448           diff is suitable for human consumption, but cannot be applied. For
449           this reason, textconv filters are enabled by default only for git-
450           diff(1) and git-log(1), but not for git-format-patch(1) or diff
451           plumbing commands.
452
453       --ignore-submodules[=<when>]
454           Ignore changes to submodules in the diff generation. <when> can be
455           either "none", "untracked", "dirty" or "all", which is the default.
456           Using "none" will consider the submodule modified when it either
457           contains untracked or modified files or its HEAD differs from the
458           commit recorded in the superproject and can be used to override any
459           settings of the ignore option in git-config(1) or gitmodules(5).
460           When "untracked" is used submodules are not considered dirty when
461           they only contain untracked content (but they are still scanned for
462           modified content). Using "dirty" ignores all changes to the work
463           tree of submodules, only changes to the commits stored in the
464           superproject are shown (this was the behavior until 1.7.0). Using
465           "all" hides all changes to submodules.
466
467       --src-prefix=<prefix>
468           Show the given source prefix instead of "a/".
469
470       --dst-prefix=<prefix>
471           Show the given destination prefix instead of "b/".
472
473       --no-prefix
474           Do not show any source or destination prefix.
475
476       --line-prefix=<prefix>
477           Prepend an additional prefix to every line of output.
478
479       --ita-invisible-in-index
480           By default entries added by "git add -N" appear as an existing
481           empty file in "git diff" and a new file in "git diff --cached".
482           This option makes the entry appear as a new file in "git diff" and
483           non-existent in "git diff --cached". This option could be reverted
484           with --ita-visible-in-index. Both options are experimental and
485           could be removed in future.
486
487       For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also
488       gitdiffcore(7).
489
490       -<n>
491           Prepare patches from the topmost <n> commits.
492
493       -o <dir>, --output-directory <dir>
494           Use <dir> to store the resulting files, instead of the current
495           working directory.
496
497       -n, --numbered
498           Name output in [PATCH n/m] format, even with a single patch.
499
500       -N, --no-numbered
501           Name output in [PATCH] format.
502
503       --start-number <n>
504           Start numbering the patches at <n> instead of 1.
505
506       --numbered-files
507           Output file names will be a simple number sequence without the
508           default first line of the commit appended.
509
510       -k, --keep-subject
511           Do not strip/add [PATCH] from the first line of the commit log
512           message.
513
514       -s, --signoff
515           Add a Signed-off-by trailer to the commit message, using the
516           committer identity of yourself. See the signoff option in git-
517           commit(1) for more information.
518
519       --stdout
520           Print all commits to the standard output in mbox format, instead of
521           creating a file for each one.
522
523       --attach[=<boundary>]
524           Create multipart/mixed attachment, the first part of which is the
525           commit message and the patch itself in the second part, with
526           Content-Disposition: attachment.
527
528       --no-attach
529           Disable the creation of an attachment, overriding the configuration
530           setting.
531
532       --inline[=<boundary>]
533           Create multipart/mixed attachment, the first part of which is the
534           commit message and the patch itself in the second part, with
535           Content-Disposition: inline.
536
537       --thread[=<style>], --no-thread
538           Controls addition of In-Reply-To and References headers to make the
539           second and subsequent mails appear as replies to the first. Also
540           controls generation of the Message-Id header to reference.
541
542           The optional <style> argument can be either shallow or deep.
543           shallow threading makes every mail a reply to the head of the
544           series, where the head is chosen from the cover letter, the
545           --in-reply-to, and the first patch mail, in this order.  deep
546           threading makes every mail a reply to the previous one.
547
548           The default is --no-thread, unless the format.thread configuration
549           is set. If --thread is specified without a style, it defaults to
550           the style specified by format.thread if any, or else shallow.
551
552           Beware that the default for git send-email is to thread emails
553           itself. If you want git format-patch to take care of threading, you
554           will want to ensure that threading is disabled for git send-email.
555
556       --in-reply-to=<message id>
557           Make the first mail (or all the mails with --no-thread) appear as a
558           reply to the given <message id>, which avoids breaking threads to
559           provide a new patch series.
560
561       --ignore-if-in-upstream
562           Do not include a patch that matches a commit in <until>..<since>.
563           This will examine all patches reachable from <since> but not from
564           <until> and compare them with the patches being generated, and any
565           patch that matches is ignored.
566
567       --cover-from-description=<mode>
568           Controls which parts of the cover letter will be automatically
569           populated using the branch’s description.
570
571           If <mode> is message or default, the cover letter subject will be
572           populated with placeholder text. The body of the cover letter will
573           be populated with the branch’s description. This is the default
574           mode when no configuration nor command line option is specified.
575
576           If <mode> is subject, the first paragraph of the branch description
577           will populate the cover letter subject. The remainder of the
578           description will populate the body of the cover letter.
579
580           If <mode> is auto, if the first paragraph of the branch description
581           is greater than 100 bytes, then the mode will be message, otherwise
582           subject will be used.
583
584           If <mode> is none, both the cover letter subject and body will be
585           populated with placeholder text.
586
587       --subject-prefix=<subject prefix>
588           Instead of the standard [PATCH] prefix in the subject line, instead
589           use [<subject prefix>]. This allows for useful naming of a patch
590           series, and can be combined with the --numbered option.
591
592       --filename-max-length=<n>
593           Instead of the standard 64 bytes, chomp the generated output
594           filenames at around <n> bytes (too short a value will be silently
595           raised to a reasonable length). Defaults to the value of the
596           format.filenameMaxLength configuration variable, or 64 if
597           unconfigured.
598
599       --rfc
600           Alias for --subject-prefix="RFC PATCH". RFC means "Request For
601           Comments"; use this when sending an experimental patch for
602           discussion rather than application.
603
604       -v <n>, --reroll-count=<n>
605           Mark the series as the <n>-th iteration of the topic. The output
606           filenames have v<n> prepended to them, and the subject prefix
607           ("PATCH" by default, but configurable via the --subject-prefix
608           option) has ` v<n>` appended to it. E.g.  --reroll-count=4 may
609           produce v4-0001-add-makefile.patch file that has "Subject: [PATCH
610           v4 1/20] Add makefile" in it.  <n> does not have to be an integer
611           (e.g. "--reroll-count=4.4", or "--reroll-count=4rev2" are allowed),
612           but the downside of using such a reroll-count is that the
613           range-diff/interdiff with the previous version does not state
614           exactly which version the new interation is compared against.
615
616       --to=<email>
617           Add a To: header to the email headers. This is in addition to any
618           configured headers, and may be used multiple times. The negated
619           form --no-to discards all To: headers added so far (from config or
620           command line).
621
622       --cc=<email>
623           Add a Cc: header to the email headers. This is in addition to any
624           configured headers, and may be used multiple times. The negated
625           form --no-cc discards all Cc: headers added so far (from config or
626           command line).
627
628       --from, --from=<ident>
629           Use ident in the From: header of each commit email. If the author
630           ident of the commit is not textually identical to the provided
631           ident, place a From: header in the body of the message with the
632           original author. If no ident is given, use the committer ident.
633
634           Note that this option is only useful if you are actually sending
635           the emails and want to identify yourself as the sender, but retain
636           the original author (and git am will correctly pick up the in-body
637           header). Note also that git send-email already handles this
638           transformation for you, and this option should not be used if you
639           are feeding the result to git send-email.
640
641       --add-header=<header>
642           Add an arbitrary header to the email headers. This is in addition
643           to any configured headers, and may be used multiple times. For
644           example, --add-header="Organization: git-foo". The negated form
645           --no-add-header discards all (To:, Cc:, and custom) headers added
646           so far from config or command line.
647
648       --[no-]cover-letter
649           In addition to the patches, generate a cover letter file containing
650           the branch description, shortlog and the overall diffstat. You can
651           fill in a description in the file before sending it out.
652
653       --encode-email-headers, --no-encode-email-headers
654           Encode email headers that have non-ASCII characters with
655           "Q-encoding" (described in RFC 2047), instead of outputting the
656           headers verbatim. Defaults to the value of the
657           format.encodeEmailHeaders configuration variable.
658
659       --interdiff=<previous>
660           As a reviewer aid, insert an interdiff into the cover letter, or as
661           commentary of the lone patch of a 1-patch series, showing the
662           differences between the previous version of the patch series and
663           the series currently being formatted.  previous is a single
664           revision naming the tip of the previous series which shares a
665           common base with the series being formatted (for example git
666           format-patch --cover-letter --interdiff=feature/v1 -3 feature/v2).
667
668       --range-diff=<previous>
669           As a reviewer aid, insert a range-diff (see git-range-diff(1)) into
670           the cover letter, or as commentary of the lone patch of a 1-patch
671           series, showing the differences between the previous version of the
672           patch series and the series currently being formatted.  previous
673           can be a single revision naming the tip of the previous series if
674           it shares a common base with the series being formatted (for
675           example git format-patch --cover-letter --range-diff=feature/v1 -3
676           feature/v2), or a revision range if the two versions of the series
677           are disjoint (for example git format-patch --cover-letter
678           --range-diff=feature/v1~3..feature/v1 -3 feature/v2).
679
680           Note that diff options passed to the command affect how the primary
681           product of format-patch is generated, and they are not passed to
682           the underlying range-diff machinery used to generate the
683           cover-letter material (this may change in the future).
684
685       --creation-factor=<percent>
686           Used with --range-diff, tweak the heuristic which matches up
687           commits between the previous and current series of patches by
688           adjusting the creation/deletion cost fudge factor. See git-range-
689           diff(1)) for details.
690
691       --notes[=<ref>], --no-notes
692           Append the notes (see git-notes(1)) for the commit after the
693           three-dash line.
694
695           The expected use case of this is to write supporting explanation
696           for the commit that does not belong to the commit log message
697           proper, and include it with the patch submission. While one can
698           simply write these explanations after format-patch has run but
699           before sending, keeping them as Git notes allows them to be
700           maintained between versions of the patch series (but see the
701           discussion of the notes.rewrite configuration options in git-
702           notes(1) to use this workflow).
703
704           The default is --no-notes, unless the format.notes configuration is
705           set.
706
707       --[no-]signature=<signature>
708           Add a signature to each message produced. Per RFC 3676 the
709           signature is separated from the body by a line with '-- ' on it. If
710           the signature option is omitted the signature defaults to the Git
711           version number.
712
713       --signature-file=<file>
714           Works just like --signature except the signature is read from a
715           file.
716
717       --suffix=.<sfx>
718           Instead of using .patch as the suffix for generated filenames, use
719           specified suffix. A common alternative is --suffix=.txt. Leaving
720           this empty will remove the .patch suffix.
721
722           Note that the leading character does not have to be a dot; for
723           example, you can use --suffix=-patch to get
724           0001-description-of-my-change-patch.
725
726       -q, --quiet
727           Do not print the names of the generated files to standard output.
728
729       --no-binary
730           Do not output contents of changes in binary files, instead display
731           a notice that those files changed. Patches generated using this
732           option cannot be applied properly, but they are still useful for
733           code review.
734
735       --zero-commit
736           Output an all-zero hash in each patch’s From header instead of the
737           hash of the commit.
738
739       --[no-]base[=<commit>]
740           Record the base tree information to identify the state the patch
741           series applies to. See the BASE TREE INFORMATION section below for
742           details. If <commit> is "auto", a base commit is automatically
743           chosen. The --no-base option overrides a format.useAutoBase
744           configuration.
745
746       --root
747           Treat the revision argument as a <revision range>, even if it is
748           just a single commit (that would normally be treated as a <since>).
749           Note that root commits included in the specified range are always
750           formatted as creation patches, independently of this flag.
751
752       --progress
753           Show progress reports on stderr as patches are generated.
754

CONFIGURATION

756       You can specify extra mail header lines to be added to each message,
757       defaults for the subject prefix and file suffix, number patches when
758       outputting more than one patch, add "To:" or "Cc:" headers, configure
759       attachments, change the patch output directory, and sign off patches
760       with configuration variables.
761
762           [format]
763                   headers = "Organization: git-foo\n"
764                   subjectPrefix = CHANGE
765                   suffix = .txt
766                   numbered = auto
767                   to = <email>
768                   cc = <email>
769                   attach [ = mime-boundary-string ]
770                   signOff = true
771                   outputDirectory = <directory>
772                   coverLetter = auto
773                   coverFromDescription = auto
774

DISCUSSION

776       The patch produced by git format-patch is in UNIX mailbox format, with
777       a fixed "magic" time stamp to indicate that the file is output from
778       format-patch rather than a real mailbox, like so:
779
780           From 8f72bad1baf19a53459661343e21d6491c3908d3 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
781           From: Tony Luck <tony.luck@intel.com>
782           Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 11:42:54 -0700
783           Subject: [PATCH] =?UTF-8?q?[IA64]=20Put=20ia64=20config=20files=20on=20the=20?=
784            =?UTF-8?q?Uwe=20Kleine-K=C3=B6nig=20diet?=
785           MIME-Version: 1.0
786           Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
787           Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
788
789           arch/arm config files were slimmed down using a python script
790           (See commit c2330e286f68f1c408b4aa6515ba49d57f05beae comment)
791
792           Do the same for ia64 so we can have sleek & trim looking
793           ...
794
795       Typically it will be placed in a MUA’s drafts folder, edited to add
796       timely commentary that should not go in the changelog after the three
797       dashes, and then sent as a message whose body, in our example, starts
798       with "arch/arm config files were...". On the receiving end, readers can
799       save interesting patches in a UNIX mailbox and apply them with git-
800       am(1).
801
802       When a patch is part of an ongoing discussion, the patch generated by
803       git format-patch can be tweaked to take advantage of the git am
804       --scissors feature. After your response to the discussion comes a line
805       that consists solely of "-- >8 --" (scissors and perforation), followed
806       by the patch with unnecessary header fields removed:
807
808           ...
809           > So we should do such-and-such.
810
811           Makes sense to me.  How about this patch?
812
813           -- >8 --
814           Subject: [IA64] Put ia64 config files on the Uwe Kleine-König diet
815
816           arch/arm config files were slimmed down using a python script
817           ...
818
819       When sending a patch this way, most often you are sending your own
820       patch, so in addition to the "From $SHA1 $magic_timestamp" marker you
821       should omit From: and Date: lines from the patch file. The patch title
822       is likely to be different from the subject of the discussion the patch
823       is in response to, so it is likely that you would want to keep the
824       Subject: line, like the example above.
825
826   Checking for patch corruption
827       Many mailers if not set up properly will corrupt whitespace. Here are
828       two common types of corruption:
829
830       •   Empty context lines that do not have any whitespace.
831
832       •   Non-empty context lines that have one extra whitespace at the
833           beginning.
834
835       One way to test if your MUA is set up correctly is:
836
837       •   Send the patch to yourself, exactly the way you would, except with
838           To: and Cc: lines that do not contain the list and maintainer
839           address.
840
841       •   Save that patch to a file in UNIX mailbox format. Call it a.patch,
842           say.
843
844       •   Apply it:
845
846               $ git fetch <project> master:test-apply
847               $ git switch test-apply
848               $ git restore --source=HEAD --staged --worktree :/
849               $ git am a.patch
850
851       If it does not apply correctly, there can be various reasons.
852
853       •   The patch itself does not apply cleanly. That is bad but does not
854           have much to do with your MUA. You might want to rebase the patch
855           with git-rebase(1) before regenerating it in this case.
856
857       •   The MUA corrupted your patch; "am" would complain that the patch
858           does not apply. Look in the .git/rebase-apply/ subdirectory and see
859           what patch file contains and check for the common corruption
860           patterns mentioned above.
861
862       •   While at it, check the info and final-commit files as well. If what
863           is in final-commit is not exactly what you would want to see in the
864           commit log message, it is very likely that the receiver would end
865           up hand editing the log message when applying your patch. Things
866           like "Hi, this is my first patch.\n" in the patch e-mail should
867           come after the three-dash line that signals the end of the commit
868           message.
869

MUA-SPECIFIC HINTS

871       Here are some hints on how to successfully submit patches inline using
872       various mailers.
873
874   GMail
875       GMail does not have any way to turn off line wrapping in the web
876       interface, so it will mangle any emails that you send. You can however
877       use "git send-email" and send your patches through the GMail SMTP
878       server, or use any IMAP email client to connect to the google IMAP
879       server and forward the emails through that.
880
881       For hints on using git send-email to send your patches through the
882       GMail SMTP server, see the EXAMPLE section of git-send-email(1).
883
884       For hints on submission using the IMAP interface, see the EXAMPLE
885       section of git-imap-send(1).
886
887   Thunderbird
888       By default, Thunderbird will both wrap emails as well as flag them as
889       being format=flowed, both of which will make the resulting email
890       unusable by Git.
891
892       There are three different approaches: use an add-on to turn off line
893       wraps, configure Thunderbird to not mangle patches, or use an external
894       editor to keep Thunderbird from mangling the patches.
895
896       Approach #1 (add-on)
897           Install the Toggle Word Wrap add-on that is available from
898           https://addons.mozilla.org/thunderbird/addon/toggle-word-wrap/ It
899           adds a menu entry "Enable Word Wrap" in the composer’s "Options"
900           menu that you can tick off. Now you can compose the message as you
901           otherwise do (cut + paste, git format-patch | git imap-send, etc),
902           but you have to insert line breaks manually in any text that you
903           type.
904
905       Approach #2 (configuration)
906           Three steps:
907
908            1. Configure your mail server composition as plain text: Edit...
909               Account Settings...Composition & Addressing, uncheck "Compose
910               Messages in HTML".
911
912            2. Configure your general composition window to not wrap.
913
914               In Thunderbird 2: Edit..Preferences..Composition, wrap plain
915               text messages at 0
916
917               In Thunderbird 3: Edit..Preferences..Advanced..Config Editor.
918               Search for "mail.wrap_long_lines". Toggle it to make sure it is
919               set to false. Also, search for "mailnews.wraplength" and set
920               the value to 0.
921
922            3. Disable the use of format=flowed:
923               Edit..Preferences..Advanced..Config Editor. Search for
924               "mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed". Toggle it to make sure it is
925               set to false.
926
927           After that is done, you should be able to compose email as you
928           otherwise would (cut + paste, git format-patch | git imap-send,
929           etc), and the patches will not be mangled.
930
931       Approach #3 (external editor)
932           The following Thunderbird extensions are needed: AboutConfig from
933           http://aboutconfig.mozdev.org/ and External Editor from
934           http://globs.org/articles.php?lng=en&pg=8
935
936            1. Prepare the patch as a text file using your method of choice.
937
938            2. Before opening a compose window, use Edit→Account Settings to
939               uncheck the "Compose messages in HTML format" setting in the
940               "Composition & Addressing" panel of the account to be used to
941               send the patch.
942
943            3. In the main Thunderbird window, before you open the compose
944               window for the patch, use Tools→about:config to set the
945               following to the indicated values:
946
947                           mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed  => false
948                           mailnews.wraplength             => 0
949
950            4. Open a compose window and click the external editor icon.
951
952            5. In the external editor window, read in the patch file and exit
953               the editor normally.
954
955           Side note: it may be possible to do step 2 with about:config and
956           the following settings but no one’s tried yet.
957
958                       mail.html_compose                       => false
959                       mail.identity.default.compose_html      => false
960                       mail.identity.id?.compose_html          => false
961
962           There is a script in contrib/thunderbird-patch-inline which can
963           help you include patches with Thunderbird in an easy way. To use
964           it, do the steps above and then use the script as the external
965           editor.
966
967   KMail
968       This should help you to submit patches inline using KMail.
969
970        1. Prepare the patch as a text file.
971
972        2. Click on New Mail.
973
974        3. Go under "Options" in the Composer window and be sure that "Word
975           wrap" is not set.
976
977        4. Use Message → Insert file... and insert the patch.
978
979        5. Back in the compose window: add whatever other text you wish to the
980           message, complete the addressing and subject fields, and press
981           send.
982

BASE TREE INFORMATION

984       The base tree information block is used for maintainers or third party
985       testers to know the exact state the patch series applies to. It
986       consists of the base commit, which is a well-known commit that is part
987       of the stable part of the project history everybody else works off of,
988       and zero or more prerequisite patches, which are well-known patches in
989       flight that is not yet part of the base commit that need to be applied
990       on top of base commit in topological order before the patches can be
991       applied.
992
993       The base commit is shown as "base-commit: " followed by the 40-hex of
994       the commit object name. A prerequisite patch is shown as
995       "prerequisite-patch-id: " followed by the 40-hex patch id, which can be
996       obtained by passing the patch through the git patch-id --stable
997       command.
998
999       Imagine that on top of the public commit P, you applied well-known
1000       patches X, Y and Z from somebody else, and then built your three-patch
1001       series A, B, C, the history would be like:
1002
1003           ---P---X---Y---Z---A---B---C
1004
1005       With git format-patch --base=P -3 C (or variants thereof, e.g. with
1006       --cover-letter or using Z..C instead of -3 C to specify the range), the
1007       base tree information block is shown at the end of the first message
1008       the command outputs (either the first patch, or the cover letter), like
1009       this:
1010
1011           base-commit: P
1012           prerequisite-patch-id: X
1013           prerequisite-patch-id: Y
1014           prerequisite-patch-id: Z
1015
1016       For non-linear topology, such as
1017
1018           ---P---X---A---M---C
1019               \         /
1020                Y---Z---B
1021
1022       You can also use git format-patch --base=P -3 C to generate patches for
1023       A, B and C, and the identifiers for P, X, Y, Z are appended at the end
1024       of the first message.
1025
1026       If set --base=auto in cmdline, it will track base commit automatically,
1027       the base commit will be the merge base of tip commit of the
1028       remote-tracking branch and revision-range specified in cmdline. For a
1029       local branch, you need to track a remote branch by git branch
1030       --set-upstream-to before using this option.
1031

EXAMPLES

1033       •   Extract commits between revisions R1 and R2, and apply them on top
1034           of the current branch using git am to cherry-pick them:
1035
1036               $ git format-patch -k --stdout R1..R2 | git am -3 -k
1037
1038       •   Extract all commits which are in the current branch but not in the
1039           origin branch:
1040
1041               $ git format-patch origin
1042
1043           For each commit a separate file is created in the current
1044           directory.
1045
1046       •   Extract all commits that lead to origin since the inception of the
1047           project:
1048
1049               $ git format-patch --root origin
1050
1051       •   The same as the previous one:
1052
1053               $ git format-patch -M -B origin
1054
1055           Additionally, it detects and handles renames and complete rewrites
1056           intelligently to produce a renaming patch. A renaming patch reduces
1057           the amount of text output, and generally makes it easier to review.
1058           Note that non-Git "patch" programs won’t understand renaming
1059           patches, so use it only when you know the recipient uses Git to
1060           apply your patch.
1061
1062       •   Extract three topmost commits from the current branch and format
1063           them as e-mailable patches:
1064
1065               $ git format-patch -3
1066

CAVEATS

1068       Note that format-patch will omit merge commits from the output, even if
1069       they are part of the requested range. A simple "patch" does not include
1070       enough information for the receiving end to reproduce the same merge
1071       commit.
1072

SEE ALSO

1074       git-am(1), git-send-email(1)
1075

GIT

1077       Part of the git(1) suite
1078
1079
1080
1081Git 2.33.1                        2021-10-12               GIT-FORMAT-PATCH(1)
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