From 57756161eed50f2b52c9e32b01f6388814a09943 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jonathan Nieder Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2011 21:24:01 -0500 Subject: Documentation: explain how to check for patch corruption SubmittingPatches has some excellent advice about how to check a patch for corruption before sending it off. Move it to the format-patch manual so it can be installed with git's documentation for use by people not necessarily interested in the git project's practices. Signed-off-by: Jonathan Nieder Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano --- Documentation/SubmittingPatches | 58 +++++++++----------------------------- Documentation/git-format-patch.txt | 46 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 2 files changed, 60 insertions(+), 44 deletions(-) (limited to 'Documentation') diff --git a/Documentation/SubmittingPatches b/Documentation/SubmittingPatches index c6a503291..20b410147 100644 --- a/Documentation/SubmittingPatches +++ b/Documentation/SubmittingPatches @@ -344,50 +344,20 @@ MUA specific hints Some of patches I receive or pick up from the list share common patterns of breakage. Please make sure your MUA is set up -properly not to corrupt whitespaces. Here are two common ones -I have seen: - -* Empty context lines that do not have _any_ whitespace. - -* Non empty context lines that have one extra whitespace at the - beginning. - -One test you could do yourself if your MUA is set up correctly is: - -* Send the patch to yourself, exactly the way you would, except - To: and Cc: lines, which would not contain the list and - maintainer address. - -* Save that patch to a file in UNIX mailbox format. Call it say - a.patch. - -* Try to apply to the tip of the "master" branch from the - git.git public repository: - - $ git fetch http://kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git 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. - -* Your patch itself does not apply cleanly. That is _bad_ but - does not have much to do with your MUA. Please rebase the - patch appropriately. - -* Your MUA corrupted your patch; "am" would complain that - the patch does not apply. Look at .git/rebase-apply/ subdirectory and - see what 'patch' file contains and check for the common - corruption patterns mentioned above. - -* While you are at it, check what are in '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 your maintainer would end up - hand editing the log message when he applies your patch. - Things like "Hi, this is my first patch.\n", if you really - want to put in the patch e-mail, should come after the - three-dash line that signals the end of the commit message. +properly not to corrupt whitespaces. + +See the DISCUSSION section of git-format-patch(1) for hints on +checking your patch by mailing it to yourself and applying with +git-am(1). + +While you are at it, check the resulting commit log message from +a trial run of applying the patch. If what is in the resulting +commit is not exactly what you would want to see, it is very +likely that your maintainer would end up hand editing the log +message when he applies your patch. Things like "Hi, this is my +first patch.\n", if you really want to put in the patch e-mail, +should come after the three-dash line that signals the end of the +commit message. Pine diff --git a/Documentation/git-format-patch.txt b/Documentation/git-format-patch.txt index 155b7ae3c..8bf6a6850 100644 --- a/Documentation/git-format-patch.txt +++ b/Documentation/git-format-patch.txt @@ -286,6 +286,52 @@ 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 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. + EXAMPLES -------- -- cgit v1.2.1