Patman patch manager
This tool is a Python script which:
Creates patch directly from your branch
Cleans them up by removing unwanted tags
Inserts a cover letter with change lists
Runs the patches through checkpatch.pl and its own checks
Optionally emails them out to selected people
It also has some Patchwork features:
shows review tags from Patchwork so you can update your local patches
pulls these down into a new branch on request
lists comments received on a series
It is intended to automate patch creation and make it a less error-prone process. It is useful for U-Boot and Linux work so far, since they use the checkpatch.pl script.
It is configured almost entirely by tags it finds in your commits. This means that you can work on a number of different branches at once, and keep the settings with each branch rather than having to git format-patch, git send-email, etc. with the correct parameters each time. So for example if you put:
Series-to: fred.blogs@napier.co.nz
in one of your commits, the series will be sent there.
In Linux and U-Boot this will also call get_maintainer.pl on each of your patches automatically (unless you use -m to disable this).
Installation
You can install patman using:
pip install patch-manager
The name is chosen since patman conflicts with an existing package.
If you are using patman within the U-Boot tree, it may be easiest to add a symlink from your local ~/.bin directory to /path/to/tools/patman/patman.
How to use this tool
This tool requires a certain way of working:
Maintain a number of branches, one for each patch series you are working on
Add tags into the commits within each branch to indicate where the series should be sent, cover letter, version, etc. Most of these are normally in the top commit so it is easy to change them with ‘git commit –amend’
Each branch tracks the upstream branch, so that this script can automatically determine the number of commits in it (optional)
Check out a branch, and run this script to create and send out your patches. Weeks later, change the patches and repeat, knowing that you will get a consistent result each time.
How to configure it
For most cases of using patman for U-Boot development, patman can use the file ‘doc/git-mailrc’ in your U-Boot directory to supply the email aliases you need. To make this work, tell git where to find the file by typing this once:
git config sendemail.aliasesfile doc/git-mailrc
For both Linux and U-Boot the ‘scripts/get_maintainer.pl’ handles figuring out where to send patches pretty well. For other projects, you may want to specify a different script to be run, for example via a project-specific .patman file:
# .patman configuration file at the root of some project
[settings]
get_maintainer_script: etc/teams.scm get-maintainer
The get_maintainer_script option corresponds to the –get-maintainer-script argument of the send command. It is looked relatively to the root of the current git repository, as well as on PATH. It can also be provided arguments, as shown above. The contract is that the script should accept a patch file name and return a list of email addresses, one per line, like get_maintainer.pl does.
During the first run patman creates a config file for you by taking the default user name and email address from the global .gitconfig file.
To add your own, create a file ~/.patman like this:
# patman alias file
[alias]
me: Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org>
u-boot: U-Boot Mailing List <u-boot@lists.denx.de>
wolfgang: Wolfgang Denk <wd@denx.de>
others: Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org>, Fred Bloggs <f.bloggs@napier.net>
As hinted above, Patman will also look for a .patman configuration file at the root of the current project git repository, which makes it possible to override the project settings variable or anything else in a project-specific way. The values of this “local” configuration file take precedence over those of the “global” one.
Aliases are recursive.
The checkpatch.pl in the U-Boot tools/ subdirectory will be located and used. Failing that you can put it into your path or ~/bin/checkpatch.pl
If you want to avoid sending patches to email addresses that are picked up by patman but are known to bounce you can add a [bounces] section to your .patman file. Unlike the [alias] section these are simple key: value pairs that are not recursive:
[bounces]
gonefishing: Fred Bloggs <f.bloggs@napier.net>
If you want to change the defaults for patman’s command-line arguments, you can add a [settings] section to your .patman file. This can be used for any command line option by referring to the “dest” for the option in patman.py. For reference, the useful ones (at the moment) shown below (all with the non-default setting):
[settings]
ignore_errors: True
process_tags: False
verbose: True
smtp_server: /path/to/sendmail
patchwork_url: https://patchwork.ozlabs.org
If you want to adjust settings (or aliases) that affect just a single project you can add a section that looks like [project_settings] or [project_alias]. If you want to use tags for your linux work, you could do:
[linux_settings]
process_tags: True
How to run it
First do a dry run:
./tools/patman/patman send -n
If it can’t detect the upstream branch, try telling it how many patches there are in your series
./tools/patman/patman -c5 send -n
This will create patch files in your current directory and tell you who it is thinking of sending them to. Take a look at the patch files:
./tools/patman/patman -c5 -s1 send -n
Similar to the above, but skip the first commit and take the next 5. This is useful if your top commit is for setting up testing.
How to install it
The most up to date version of patman can be found in the U-Boot sources. However to use it on other projects it may be more convenient to install it as a standalone application. A distutils installer is included, this can be used to install patman:
cd tools/patman && python setup.py install
Where Patches Are Sent
Once the patches are created, patman sends them using git send-email. The whole series is sent to the recipients in Series-to: and Series-cc. You can Cc individual patches to other people with the Patch-cc: tag. Tags in the subject are also picked up to Cc patches. For example, a commit like this:
commit 10212537b85ff9b6e09c82045127522c0f0db981
Author: Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org>
Date: Mon Nov 7 23:18:44 2011 -0500
x86: arm: add a git mailrc file for maintainers
This should make sending out e-mails to the right people easier.
Patch-cc: sandbox, mikef, ag
Patch-cc: afleming
will create a patch which is copied to x86, arm, sandbox, mikef, ag and afleming.
If you have a cover letter it will get sent to the union of the Patch-cc lists of all of the other patches. If you want to sent it to additional people you can add a tag:
Cover-letter-cc: <list of addresses>
These people will get the cover letter even if they are not on the To/Cc list for any of the patches.
Patchwork Integration
Patman has a very basic integration with Patchwork. If you point patman to your series on patchwork it can show you what new reviews have appeared since you sent your series.
To set this up, add a Series-link tag to one of the commits in your series (see above).
Then you can type:
patman status
and patman will show you each patch and what review tags have been collected, for example:
...
21 x86: mtrr: Update the command to use the new mtrr
Reviewed-by: Wolfgang Wallner <wolfgang.wallner@br-automation.com>
+ Reviewed-by: Bin Meng <bmeng.cn@gmail.com>
22 x86: mtrr: Restructure so command execution is in
Reviewed-by: Wolfgang Wallner <wolfgang.wallner@br-automation.com>
+ Reviewed-by: Bin Meng <bmeng.cn@gmail.com>
...
This shows that patch 21 and 22 were sent out with one review but have since attracted another review each. If the series needs changes, you can update these commits with the new review tag before sending the next version of the series.
To automatically pull into these tags into a new branch, use the -d option:
patman status -d mtrr4
This will create a new ‘mtrr4’ branch which is the same as your current branch but has the new review tags in it. The tags are added in alphabetic order and are placed immediately after any existing ack/review/test/fixes tags, or at the end. You can check that this worked with:
patman -b mtrr4 status
which should show that there are no new responses compared to this new branch.
There is also a -C option to list the comments received for each patch.
Example Work Flow
The basic workflow is to create your commits, add some tags to the top commit, and type ‘patman’ to check and send them.
Here is an example workflow for a series of 4 patches. Let’s say you have these rather contrived patches in the following order in branch us-cmd in your tree where ‘us’ means your upstreaming activity (newest to oldest as output by git log –oneline):
7c7909c wip
89234f5 Don't include standard parser if hush is used
8d640a7 mmc: sparc: Stop using builtin_run_command()
0c859a9 Rename run_command2() to run_command()
a74443f sandbox: Rename run_command() to builtin_run_command()
The first patch is some test things that enable your code to be compiled, but that you don’t want to submit because there is an existing patch for it on the list. So you can tell patman to create and check some patches (skipping the first patch) with:
patman -s1 send -n
If you want to do all of them including the work-in-progress one, then (if you are tracking an upstream branch):
patman send -n
Let’s say that patman reports an error in the second patch. Then:
git rebase -i HEAD~6
# change 'pick' to 'edit' in 89234f5
# use editor to make code changes
git add -u
git rebase --continue
Now you have an updated patch series. To check it:
patman -s1 send -n
Let’s say it is now clean and you want to send it. Now you need to set up the destination. So amend the top commit with:
git commit --amend
Use your editor to add some tags, so that the whole commit message is:
The current run_command() is really only one of the options, with
hush providing the other. It really shouldn't be called directly
in case the hush parser is bring used, so rename this function to
better explain its purpose::
Series-to: u-boot
Series-cc: bfin, marex
Series-prefix: RFC
Cover-letter:
Unified command execution in one place
At present two parsers have similar code to execute commands. Also
cmd_usage() is called all over the place. This series adds a single
function which processes commands called cmd_process().
END
Change-Id: Ica71a14c1f0ecb5650f771a32fecb8d2eb9d8a17
You want this to be an RFC and Cc the whole series to the bfin alias and to Marek. Two of the patches have tags (those are the bits at the front of the subject that say mmc: sparc: and sandbox:), so 8d640a7 will be Cc’d to mmc and sparc, and the last one to sandbox.
Now to send the patches, take off the -n flag:
patman -s1 send
The patches will be created, shown in your editor, and then sent along with the cover letter. Note that patman’s tags are automatically removed so that people on the list don’t see your secret info.
Of course patches often attract comments and you need to make some updates. Let’s say one person sent comments and you get an Acked-by: on one patch. Also, the patch on the list that you were waiting for has been merged, so you can drop your wip commit.
Take a look on patchwork and find out the URL of the series. This will be something like http://patchwork.ozlabs.org/project/uboot/list/?series=187331 Add this to a tag in your top commit:
Series-links: 187331
You can use then patman to collect the Acked-by tag to the correct commit, creating a new ‘version 2’ branch for us-cmd:
patman status -d us-cmd2
git checkout us-cmd2
You can look at the comments in Patchwork or with:
patman status -C
Then you can resync with upstream:
git fetch origin # or whatever upstream is called
git rebase origin/master
and use git rebase -i to edit the commits, dropping the wip one.
Then update the Series-cc: in the top commit to add the person who reviewed the v1 series:
Series-cc: bfin, marex, Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
and remove the Series-prefix: tag since it it isn’t an RFC any more. The series is now version two, so the series info in the top commit looks like this:
Series-to: u-boot
Series-cc: bfin, marex, Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>
Series-version: 2
Cover-letter:
...
Finally, you need to add a change log to the two commits you changed. You add change logs to each individual commit where the changes happened, like this:
Series-changes: 2
- Updated the command decoder to reduce code size
- Wound the torque propounder up a little more
(note the blank line at the end of the list)
When you run patman it will collect all the change logs from the different commits and combine them into the cover letter, if you have one. So finally you have a new series of commits:
faeb973 Don't include standard parser if hush is used
1b2f2fe mmc: sparc: Stop using builtin_run_command()
cfbe330 Rename run_command2() to run_command()
0682677 sandbox: Rename run_command() to builtin_run_command()
so to send them:
patman
and it will create and send the version 2 series.
General points
When you change back to the us-cmd branch days or weeks later all your information is still there, safely stored in the commits. You don’t need to remember what version you are up to, who you sent the last lot of patches to, or anything about the change logs.
If you put tags in the subject, patman will Cc the maintainers automatically in many cases.
If you want to keep the commits from each series you sent so that you can compare change and see what you did, you can either create a new branch for each version, or just tag the branch before you start changing it:
git tag sent/us-cmd-rfc # ...later... git tag sent/us-cmd-v2
If you want to modify the patches a little before sending, you can do this in your editor, but be careful!
If you want to run git send-email yourself, use the -n flag which will print out the command line patman would have used.
It is a good idea to add the change log info as you change the commit, not later when you can’t remember which patch you changed. You can always go back and change or remove logs from commits.
Some mailing lists have size limits and when we add binary contents to our patches it’s easy to exceed the size limits. Use “–no-binary” to generate patches without any binary contents. You are supposed to include a link to a git repository in your “Commit-notes”, “Series-notes” or “Cover-letter” for maintainers to fetch the original commit.
Patches will have no changelog entries for revisions where they did not change. For clarity, if there are no changes for this patch in the most recent revision of the series, a note will be added. For example, a patch with the following tags in the commit:
Series-version: 5 Series-changes: 2 - Some change Series-changes: 4 - Another change
would have a changelog of::
(no changes since v4) Changes in v4: - Another change Changes in v2: - Some change
Other thoughts
This script has been split into sensible files but still needs work. Most of these are indicated by a TODO in the code.
It would be nice if this could handle the In-reply-to side of things.
The tests are incomplete, as is customary. Use the ‘test’ subcommand to run them:
$ tools/patman/patman test
Note that since the test suite depends on data files only available in the git checkout, the test command is hidden unless patman is invoked from the U-Boot git repository.
Alternatively, you can run the test suite via Pytest:
$ cd tools/patman && pytest
Error handling doesn’t always produce friendly error messages - e.g. putting an incorrect tag in a commit may provide a confusing message.
There might be a few other features not mentioned in this README. They might be bugs. In particular, tags are case sensitive which is probably a bad thing.