1 [[!img notmuch-logo.png alt="Notmuch logo" class="left"]]
6 Before you intend to provide patches outside of your local circle
7 you should check the following:
9 1. Run `git log` and examine quite a few commit messages.
11 2. Read mailing list (archives) and follow the discussions on the patches sent.
13 3. Get familiar with coding conventions used.
15 This way you get some insight of the look and feel of the patches sent,
16 both the way code should be written, how to write commit log messages
17 and how to participate patch discussions.
19 ## Committing changes (locally)
21 After you've been editing your changes under cloned notmuch git repository
22 first commit your changes... preferably (to you) to a separate branch;
23 if you forgot to branch before starting you can do it now -- your modified
24 working tree will follow.
26 Enter your commit message in following format:
28 first commit line; one line description, up to 65 chars
30 After one empty line, a detailed description of your changes
31 the description most usually spans over multiple lines.
33 The 65-character (limit) seems to be common among many projects so
34 that is good guideline to follow here too.
36 ## Remember: one patch per email
38 Every patch should (must!) contain only one bugfix or new feature.
40 Eric S. Raymond has written good
41 [Software Release Practice HOWTO](http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Software-Release-Practice-HOWTO/).
42 Check what he has to say about this issue.
44 ## Prepare patches for e-mail submission
46 If you've made just one commit (containing just one bugfix or new feature)
49 git format-patch HEAD^
51 This outputs something like
53 0001-one-line-description.patch
55 This is the file name of your patch with content:
57 From <-40-character-sha1-hexadecimal-string-> Day Mon DD HH:MM:SS YYYY
58 From: user.name <user.email>
59 Date: Day, DD Mon YYYY HH:MM:SS TZOFF
60 Subject: [PATCH] first commit line; one line description, up to 65 chars
62 after one empty line, a detailed description of your patch
63 the description most usually spans over multiple lines.
66 nn files changed, nn insertions(+) nn deletions(-)
68 diff --git a/<1st filename> b/<1st filename>
71 If you have committed more patches, and want to prepare all of those
72 you can check with `git log` a 40-char commit-sha1 of the last commit
73 *since* you want to generate patch files. When you enter
75 git format-patch <commit-sha1(-prefix)>
77 every commit *after* that commit-sha1 will be used to generate
82 ### Using git send-email
84 (This is the preferred way)
86 If you try to execute `git send-email` and you get
88 git: 'send-email' is not a git command. See 'git --help'.
90 Then you're using git installation where send-email command is distributed
91 in separate package. In Debian/Ububtu/RedHat/Fedora the package is named
92 `git-email`. Use the package manager in your distribution to install this
93 package (or ask administrator to do this if you don't have privileges to do so).
95 Playing with `git send-email` is pretty safe. By default it will ask questions,
96 finally whether the email is to be sent or not. In normal cases you may
97 just need to set smtp server (in case local sendmail is not configured to
98 work properly). Check through `git-send-email` manual page and play with it.
100 In case of one-file you might want to use
102 git send-email --annotate 0001-*
104 (other options omitted) to add a 'discussion' part into your
105 email. The `git am` tool which is eventually used to submit the patch
106 will ignore anything after first `---` and before the `diff --git ...`
107 in the mail message (see example content above). In this case be careful
108 you don't break the commit log message or the patch content.
110 In case of multi-patch send, `git send-email --compose 00*.patch` can be
111 used to send an introductory message (as separate email). This also follows
112 the principle of sending only one patch per mail -- by sending each patch
115 After you've played (perhaps with `--dry-run`) a bit, send first test emails
116 to your own email address to see how the messages appear in your mailbox.
117 In this phase you can "streamline" your `git send-email` options for
118 actual patch sending to the mailing list.
120 ### Sending one patch using compatible (emacs) email client.
122 Sometimes using git-send-email is not possible; It is not installed by
123 default and you don't have privileges to install it or you are not
124 able to compile it as it has more build-time requirements as git itself.
126 One alternative way to send your patches is to use, for example, the
127 emacs mail client you've already used to send mails to mailing list.
128 In this case you have to be very careful to keep the patch contents
131 1. Start composing new mail
133 2. Enter notmuch mailing list address into To: field.
135 3. Go to the body part of the email
137 4. Enter `C-x i` (M-x insert-file) and insert the patch file to the buffer
139 5. Replace Subject: line from the Subject line of the patch.
141 6. Remove everything before the description content from the beginning of the body.
143 7. Fill the discussion part after `---` unless you have done so (and there is anything to discuss).
145 8. Check your text once more and then enter `C-c C-c` (message-send-and-exit).
147 When your patches appear on the mailing list read the comments and take part
148 to the discussion and prepare to do adjustments to your patches.