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 (in any particular project).
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 'Software Release Practice HOWTO'.
41 Check what he has to say about this issue.
43 ## Prepare patches for e-mail submission
45 If you're made just one commit (containing just one bugfix or new feature)
48 git format-patch HEAD^
50 This outputs something like
52 0001-one-line-description.patch
54 This is the file name of your patch with content:
56 From <-40-character-sha1-hexadecimal-string-> Day Mon DD HH:MM:SS YYYY
57 From: user.name <user.email>
58 Date: Day, DD Mon YYYY HH:MM:SS TZOFF
59 Subject: [PATCH] first commit line; one line description, up to 65 chars
61 after one empty line, a detailed description of your patch
62 the description most usually spans over multiple lines.
65 nn files changed, nn insertions(+) nn deletions(-)
67 diff --git a/<1st filename> b/<1st filename>
70 If you have committed more patches, and want to prepare all of those
71 you can check with `git log` a 40-char commit-sha1 of the last commit
72 *since* you want to generate patch files. When you enter
74 git format patch commit-sha1(-prefix)
76 every commit *after* that commit-sha1 will be used to generate
79 ## Using git send-email to send patches.
81 If you try to execute `git send-email` and you'll get
83 git: 'send-email' is not a git command. See 'git --help'.
85 Then you're using git installation where send-email command is distributed
86 in separate package. In Debian/Ububtu/RedHat/Fedora the package is named
87 `git-email`. Use the package manager in your distribution to install this
88 package (or ask administrator to do this if you don't have privileges to do so).
90 Playing with `git send-email` is pretty safe. By default it will ask questions,
91 finally whether the email is to be sent or not. In normal cases you may
92 just need to set smtp server (in case local sendmail is not configured to
93 work properly). Check through `git-send-email` manual page and play with it.
95 In case of one-file you might want to use
97 git send-email --annotate 0001-*
99 (other options omitted) to add a 'discussion' part into your
100 email. The `git am` tool which is eventually used to submit the patch
101 will ignore anything after first `---` and before the `diff --git ...`
102 in the mail message (see example content above). In this case be careful
103 you don't break the commit log message or the patch content.
105 In case of multi-patch send, `git send-email --compose 00*.patch` can be
106 used to send an introductory message (as separate email). This also follows
107 the principle of sending only one patch per mail -- by sending each patch
110 After you've played (perhaps with `--dry-run`) a bit, send first test emails
111 to your own email address to see how the messages appear in your mailbox.
112 In this phase you can "streamline" your `git send-email` options for
113 actual patch sending to the mailing list.
115 ## Sending one patch using compatible (emacs) email client.
117 One alternative way to send your patches is to use, for example, the
118 emacs mail client you've already used to send mails to notmuch mailing list.
119 In this case you have to be very careful to keep the patch contents
122 1. Start composing new mail
124 2. Enter notmuch mailing list address to To: field.
126 3. Go to the body part of the email
128 4. Enter `C-x i` (M-x insert-file) and insert the patch file to the buffer
130 5. Replace Subject: line from the Subject line of the patch.
132 6. Remove everything before the description content from the beginning of the body.
134 7. Fill the discussion part after `---` unless you have done so (and there is anything to discuss).
136 8. Check your text once more and then enter `C-c C-c` (message-send-and-exit).
138 When your patches appear on the mailing list read the comments and take part
139 to the discussion and prepare to do adjustments to your patches.