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Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/git-format-patch.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/git-format-patch.txt | 169 |
1 files changed, 169 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/git-format-patch.txt b/Documentation/git-format-patch.txt index 66aba8a2e..d13c9b23f 100644 --- a/Documentation/git-format-patch.txt +++ b/Documentation/git-format-patch.txt @@ -289,6 +289,175 @@ title is likely to be different from the subject of the discussion the patch is in response to, so it is likely that you would want to keep the Subject: line, like the example above. +Checking for patch corruption +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ +Many mailers if not set up properly will corrupt whitespace. Here are +two common types of corruption: + +* Empty context lines that do not have _any_ whitespace. + +* Non-empty context lines that have one extra whitespace at the + beginning. + +One way to test if your MUA is set up correctly is: + +* Send the patch to yourself, exactly the way you would, except + with To: and Cc: lines that do not contain the list and + maintainer address. + +* Save that patch to a file in UNIX mailbox format. Call it a.patch, + say. + +* Apply it: + + $ git fetch <project> master:test-apply + $ git checkout test-apply + $ git reset --hard + $ git am a.patch + +If it does not apply correctly, there can be various reasons. + +* The patch itself does not apply cleanly. That is _bad_ but + does not have much to do with your MUA. You might want to rebase + the patch with linkgit:git-rebase[1] before regenerating it in + this case. + +* The MUA corrupted your patch; "am" would complain that + the patch does not apply. Look in the .git/rebase-apply/ subdirectory and + see what 'patch' file contains and check for the common + corruption patterns mentioned above. + +* While at it, check the 'info' and 'final-commit' files as well. + If what is in 'final-commit' is not exactly what you would want to + see in the commit log message, it is very likely that the + receiver would end up hand editing the log message when applying + your patch. Things like "Hi, this is my first patch.\n" in the + patch e-mail should come after the three-dash line that signals + the end of the commit message. + +MUA-SPECIFIC HINTS +------------------ +Here are some hints on how to successfully submit patches inline using +various mailers. + +GMail +~~~~~ +GMail does not have any way to turn off line wrapping in the web +interface, so it will mangle any emails that you send. You can however +use "git send-email" and send your patches through the GMail SMTP server, or +use any IMAP email client to connect to the google IMAP server and forward +the emails through that. + +For hints on using 'git send-email' to send your patches through the +GMail SMTP server, see the EXAMPLE section of linkgit:git-send-email[1]. + +For hints on submission using the IMAP interface, see the EXAMPLE +section of linkgit:git-imap-send[1]. + +Thunderbird +~~~~~~~~~~~ +By default, Thunderbird will both wrap emails as well as flag +them as being 'format=flowed', both of which will make the +resulting email unusable by git. + +There are three different approaches: use an add-on to turn off line wraps, +configure Thunderbird to not mangle patches, or use +an external editor to keep Thunderbird from mangling the patches. + +Approach #1 (add-on) +^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ + +Install the Toggle Word Wrap add-on that is available from +https://addons.mozilla.org/thunderbird/addon/toggle-word-wrap/ +It adds a menu entry "Enable Word Wrap" in the composer's "Options" menu +that you can tick off. Now you can compose the message as you otherwise do +(cut + paste, 'git format-patch' | 'git imap-send', etc), but you have to +insert line breaks manually in any text that you type. + +Approach #2 (configuration) +^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ +Three steps: + +1. Configure your mail server composition as plain text: + Edit...Account Settings...Composition & Addressing, + uncheck "Compose Messages in HTML". + +2. Configure your general composition window to not wrap. ++ +In Thunderbird 2: +Edit..Preferences..Composition, wrap plain text messages at 0 ++ +In Thunderbird 3: +Edit..Preferences..Advanced..Config Editor. Search for +"mail.wrap_long_lines". +Toggle it to make sure it is set to `false`. + +3. Disable the use of format=flowed: +Edit..Preferences..Advanced..Config Editor. Search for +"mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed". +Toggle it to make sure it is set to `false`. + +After that is done, you should be able to compose email as you +otherwise would (cut + paste, 'git format-patch' | 'git imap-send', etc), +and the patches will not be mangled. + +Approach #3 (external editor) +^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ + +The following Thunderbird extensions are needed: +AboutConfig from http://aboutconfig.mozdev.org/ and +External Editor from http://globs.org/articles.php?lng=en&pg=8 + +1. Prepare the patch as a text file using your method of choice. + +2. Before opening a compose window, use Edit->Account Settings to + uncheck the "Compose messages in HTML format" setting in the + "Composition & Addressing" panel of the account to be used to + send the patch. + +3. In the main Thunderbird window, 'before' you open the compose + window for the patch, use Tools->about:config to set the + following to the indicated values: ++ +---------- + mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed => false + mailnews.wraplength => 0 +---------- + +4. Open a compose window and click the external editor icon. + +5. In the external editor window, read in the patch file and exit + the editor normally. + +Side note: it may be possible to do step 2 with +about:config and the following settings but no one's tried yet. + +---------- + mail.html_compose => false + mail.identity.default.compose_html => false + mail.identity.id?.compose_html => false +---------- + +There is a script in contrib/thunderbird-patch-inline which can help +you include patches with Thunderbird in an easy way. To use it, do the +steps above and then use the script as the external editor. + +KMail +~~~~~ +This should help you to submit patches inline using KMail. + +1. Prepare the patch as a text file. + +2. Click on New Mail. + +3. Go under "Options" in the Composer window and be sure that + "Word wrap" is not set. + +4. Use Message -> Insert file... and insert the patch. + +5. Back in the compose window: add whatever other text you wish to the + message, complete the addressing and subject fields, and press send. + EXAMPLES -------- |