1GIT-FORMAT-PATCH(1) Git Manual GIT-FORMAT-PATCH(1)
2
6 git-format-patch - Prepare patches for e-mail submission
7
9 git-format-patch [-n | -k] [-o <dir> | --stdout] [--thread]
10 [--attach[=<boundary>] | --inline[=<boundary>]]
11 [-s | --signoff] [<common diff options>]
12 [--start-number <n>] [--numbered-files]
13 [--in-reply-to=Message-Id] [--suffix=.<sfx>]
14 [--ignore-if-in-upstream]
15 [--subject-prefix=Subject-Prefix]
16 [ <since> | <revision range> ]
17
19 Prepare each commit with its patch in one file per commit, formatted to
20 resemble UNIX mailbox format. The output of this command is convenient
21 for e-mail submission or for use with git-am(1).
22 There are two ways to specify which commits to operate on.
24 1. A single commit, <since>, specifies that the commits leading to
27 the tip of the current branch that are not in the history that
28 leads to the <since> to be output.
29 2. Generic <revision range> expression (see "SPECIFYING REVISIONS"
31 section in git-rev-parse(1)) means the commits in the specified
32 range.
33 A single commit, when interpreted as a <revision range> expression,
34 means "everything that leads to that commit", but if you write git
35 format-patch <commit>, the previous rule applies to that command line
36 and you do not get "everything since the beginning of the time". If you
37 want to format everything since project inception to one commit, say
38 "git format-patch --root <commit>" to make it clear that it is the
39 latter case.
40 By default, each output file is numbered sequentially from 1, and uses
42 the first line of the commit message (massaged for pathname safety) as
43 the filename. With the --numbered-files option, the output file names
44 will only be numbers, without the first line of the commit appended.
45 The names of the output files are printed to standard output, unless
46 the --stdout option is specified.
47 If -o is specified, output files are created in <dir>. Otherwise they
49 are created in the current working directory.
50 If -n is specified, instead of "[PATCH] Subject", the first line is
52 formatted as "[PATCH n/m] Subject".
53 If given --thread, git-format-patch will generate In-Reply-To and
55 References headers to make the second and subsequent patch mails appear
56 as replies to the first mail; this also generates a Message-Id header
57 to reference.
58
60 -p
61 Generate patch (see section on generating patches)
62 -u
64 Synonym for "-p".
65 -U<n>
67 Shorthand for "--unified=<n>".
68 --unified=<n>
70 Generate diffs with <n> lines of context instead of the usual
71 three. Implies "-p".
72 --raw
74 Generate the raw format.
75 --patch-with-raw
77 Synonym for "-p --raw".
78 --stat[=width[,name-width]]
80 Generate a diffstat. You can override the default output width for
81 80-column terminal by "--stat=width". The width of the filename
82 part can be controlled by giving another width to it separated by a
83 comma.
84 --numstat
86 Similar to --stat, but shows number of added and deleted lines in
87 decimal notation and pathname without abbreviation, to make it more
88 machine friendly. For binary files, outputs two - instead of saying
89 0 0.
90 --shortstat
92 Output only the last line of the --stat format containing total
93 number of modified files, as well as number of added and deleted
94 lines.
95 --summary
97 Output a condensed summary of extended header information such as
98 creations, renames and mode changes.
99 --patch-with-stat
101 Synonym for "-p --stat".
102 -z
104 NUL-line termination on output. This affects the --raw output field
105 terminator. Also output from commands such as "git-log" will be
106 delimited with NUL between commits.
107 --name-only
109 Show only names of changed files.
110 --name-status
112 Show only names and status of changed files.
113 --color
115 Show colored diff.
116 --no-color
118 Turn off colored diff, even when the configuration file gives the
119 default to color output.
120 --color-words
122 Show colored word diff, i.e. color words which have changed.
123 --no-renames
125 Turn off rename detection, even when the configuration file gives
126 the default to do so.
127 --check
129 Warn if changes introduce trailing whitespace or an indent that
130 uses a space before a tab.
131 --full-index
133 Instead of the first handful characters, show full object name of
134 pre- and post-image blob on the "index" line when generating a
135 patch format output.
136 --binary
138 In addition to --full-index, output "binary diff" that can be
139 applied with "git apply".
140 --abbrev[=<n>]
142 Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal object name in
143 diff-raw format output and diff-tree header lines, show only
144 handful hexdigits prefix. This is independent of --full-index
145 option above, which controls the diff-patch output format. Non
146 default number of digits can be specified with --abbrev=<n>.
147 -B
149 Break complete rewrite changes into pairs of delete and create.
150 -M
152 Detect renames.
153 -C
155 Detect copies as well as renames. See also --find-copies-harder.
156 --diff-filter=[ACDMRTUXB*]
158 Select only files that are Added (A), Copied (C), Deleted (D),
159 Modified (M), Renamed (R), have their type (mode) changed (T), are
160 Unmerged (U), are Unknown (X), or have had their pairing Broken
161 (B). Any combination of the filter characters may be used. When *
162 (All-or-none) is added to the combination, all paths are selected
163 if there is any file that matches other criteria in the comparison;
164 if there is no file that matches other criteria, nothing is
165 selected.
166 --find-copies-harder
168 For performance reasons, by default, -C option finds copies only if
169 the original file of the copy was modified in the same changeset.
170 This flag makes the command inspect unmodified files as candidates
171 for the source of copy. This is a very expensive operation for
172 large projects, so use it with caution. Giving more than one -C
173 option has the same effect.
174 -l<num>
176 -M and -C options require O(n^2) processing time where n is the
177 number of potential rename/copy targets. This option prevents
178 rename/copy detection from running if the number of rename/copy
179 targets exceeds the specified number.
180 -S<string>
182 Look for differences that contain the change in <string>.
183 --pickaxe-all
185 When -S finds a change, show all the changes in that changeset, not
186 just the files that contain the change in <string>.
187 --pickaxe-regex
189 Make the <string> not a plain string but an extended POSIX regex to
190 match.
191 -O<orderfile>
193 Output the patch in the order specified in the <orderfile>, which
194 has one shell glob pattern per line.
195 -R
197 Swap two inputs; that is, show differences from index or on-disk
198 file to tree contents.
199 --text
201 Treat all files as text.
202 -a
204 Shorthand for "--text".
205 --ignore-space-at-eol
207 Ignore changes in white spaces at EOL.
208 --ignore-space-change
210 Ignore changes in amount of white space. This ignores white space
211 at line end, and consider all other sequences of one or more white
212 space characters to be equivalent.
213 -b
215 Shorthand for "--ignore-space-change".
216 --ignore-all-space
218 Ignore white space when comparing lines. This ignores difference
219 even if one line has white space where the other line has none.
220 -w
222 Shorthand for "--ignore-all-space".
223 --exit-code
225 Make the program exit with codes similar to diff(1). That is, it
226 exits with 1 if there were differences and 0 means no differences.
227 --quiet
229 Disable all output of the program. Implies --exit-code.
230 --ext-diff
232 Allow an external diff helper to be executed. If you set an
233 external diff driver with gitlink:gitattributes(5), you need to use
234 this option with gitlink:git-log(1) and friends.
235 --no-ext-diff
237 Disallow external diff drivers.
238 For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also
239 diffcore documentation[1].
240 -<n>
242 Limits the number of patches to prepare.
243 -o|--output-directory <dir>
245 Use <dir> to store the resulting files, instead of the current
246 working directory.
247 -n|--numbered
249 Name output in [PATCH n/m] format.
250 --start-number <n>
252 Start numbering the patches at <n> instead of 1.
253 --numbered-files
255 Output file names will be a simple number sequence without the
256 default first line of the commit appended. Mutually exclusive with
257 the --stdout option.
258 -k|--keep-subject
260 Do not strip/add [PATCH] from the first line of the commit log
261 message.
262 -s|--signoff
264 Add Signed-off-by: line to the commit message, using the committer
265 identity of yourself.
266 --stdout
268 Print all commits to the standard output in mbox format, instead of
269 creating a file for each one.
270 --attach[=<boundary>]
272 Create multipart/mixed attachment, the first part of which is the
273 commit message and the patch itself in the second part, with
274 "Content-Disposition: attachment".
275 --inline[=<boundary>]
277 Create multipart/mixed attachment, the first part of which is the
278 commit message and the patch itself in the second part, with
279 "Content-Disposition: inline".
280 --thread
282 Add In-Reply-To and References headers to make the second and
283 subsequent mails appear as replies to the first. Also generates the
284 Message-Id header to reference.
285 --in-reply-to=Message-Id
287 Make the first mail (or all the mails with --no-thread) appear as a
288 reply to the given Message-Id, which avoids breaking threads to
289 provide a new patch series.
290 --ignore-if-in-upstream
292 Do not include a patch that matches a commit in <until>..<since>.
293 This will examine all patches reachable from <since> but not from
294 <until> and compare them with the patches being generated, and any
295 patch that matches is ignored.
296 --subject-prefix=<Subject-Prefix>
298 Instead of the standard [PATCH] prefix in the subject line, instead
299 use [<Subject-Prefix>]. This allows for useful naming of a patch
300 series, and can be combined with the --numbered option.
301 --suffix=.<sfx>
303 Instead of using .patch as the suffix for generated filenames, use
304 specified suffix. A common alternative is --suffix=.txt.
305 Note that you would need to include the leading dot . if you want a
307 filename like 0001-description-of-my-change.patch, and the first
308 letter does not have to be a dot. Leaving it empty would not add
309 any suffix.
310
312 You can specify extra mail header lines to be added to each message in
313 the repository configuration. You can also specify new defaults for the
314 subject prefix and file suffix.
315 [format]
319 headers = "Organization: git-foo\n"
320 subjectprefix = CHANGE
321 suffix = .txt
322
325 git-format-patch -k --stdout R1..R2 | git-am -3 -k
326 Extract commits between revisions R1 and R2, and apply them on top
327 of the current branch using git-am to cherry-pick them.
328 git-format-patch origin
330 Extract all commits which are in the current branch but not in the
331 origin branch. For each commit a separate file is created in the
332 current directory.
333 git-format-patch --root origin
335 Extract all commits which that leads to origin since the inception
336 of the project.
337 git-format-patch -M -B origin
339 The same as the previous one. Additionally, it detects and handles
340 renames and complete rewrites intelligently to produce a renaming
341 patch. A renaming patch reduces the amount of text output, and
342 generally makes it easier to review it. Note that the "patch"
343 program does not understand renaming patches, so use it only when
344 you know the recipient uses git to apply your patch.
345 git-format-patch -3
347 Extract three topmost commits from the current branch and format
348 them as e-mailable patches.
349
351 git-am(1), git-send-email(1)
352
354 Written by Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
355
357 Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
358
360 Part of the git(7) suite
361
363 1. diffcore documentation
364 diffcore.html
365Git 1.5.3.3 10/09/2007 GIT-FORMAT-PATCH(1)