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GIT-FORMAT-PATCH(1) | Git Manual | GIT-FORMAT-PATCH(1) |
NAME¶
git-format-patch - Prepare patches for e-mail submissionSYNOPSIS¶
git format-patch [-k] [(-o|--output-directory) <dir> | --stdout] [--no-thread | --thread[=<style>]] [(--attach|--inline)[=<boundary>] | --no-attach] [-s | --signoff] [--signature=<signature> | --no-signature] [-n | --numbered | -N | --no-numbered] [--start-number <n>] [--numbered-files] [--in-reply-to=Message-Id] [--suffix=.<sfx>] [--ignore-if-in-upstream] [--subject-prefix=Subject-Prefix] [--to=<email>] [--cc=<email>] [--cover-letter] [--quiet] [<common diff options>] [ <since> | <revision range> ]
DESCRIPTION¶
Prepare each commit with its patch in one file per commit, formatted to resemble UNIX mailbox format. The output of this command is convenient for e-mail submission or for use with git am. 1.A single commit, <since>, specifies
that the commits leading to the tip of the current branch that are not in the
history that leads to the <since> to be output.
2.Generic <revision range> expression
(see "SPECIFYING REVISIONS" section in gitrevisions(7)) means
the commits in the specified range.
OPTIONS¶
-p, --no-statGenerate plain patches without any
diffstats.
-U<n>, --unified=<n>
Generate diffs with <n> lines of context
instead of the usual three.
--minimal
Spend extra time to make sure the smallest
possible diff is produced.
--patience
Generate a diff using the "patience
diff" algorithm.
--histogram
Generate a diff using the "histogram
diff" algorithm.
--stat[=<width>[,<name-width>[,<count>]]]
Generate a diffstat. By default, as much space
as necessary will be used for the filename part, and the rest for the graph
part. Maximum width defaults to terminal width, or 80 columns if not connected
to a terminal, and can be overriden by <width>. The width of the
filename part can be limited by giving another width <name-width> after
a comma. The width of the graph part can be limited by using
--stat-graph-width=<width> (affects all commands generating a stat
graph) or by setting diff.statGraphWidth=<width> (does not affect git
format-patch). By giving a third parameter <count>, you can limit the
output to the first <count> lines, followed by ... if there are more.
These parameters can also be set individually with --stat-width=<width>,
--stat-name-width=<name-width> and --stat-count=<count>.
--numstat
Similar to --stat, but shows number of added
and deleted lines in decimal notation and pathname without abbreviation, to
make it more machine friendly. For binary files, outputs two - instead of
saying 0 0.
--shortstat
Output only the last line of the --stat format
containing total number of modified files, as well as number of added and
deleted lines.
--dirstat[=<param1,param2,...>]
Output the distribution of relative amount of
changes for each sub-directory. The behavior of --dirstat can be customized by
passing it a comma separated list of parameters. The defaults are controlled
by the diff.dirstat configuration variable (see git-config(1)). The
following parameters are available:
changes
Example: The following will count changed files, while ignoring directories with
less than 10% of the total amount of changed files, and accumulating child
directory counts in the parent directories:
--dirstat=files,10,cumulative.
--summary
Compute the dirstat numbers by counting the
lines that have been removed from the source, or added to the destination.
This ignores the amount of pure code movements within a file. In other words,
rearranging lines in a file is not counted as much as other changes. This is
the default behavior when no parameter is given.
lines
Compute the dirstat numbers by doing the
regular line-based diff analysis, and summing the removed/added line counts.
(For binary files, count 64-byte chunks instead, since binary files have no
natural concept of lines). This is a more expensive --dirstat behavior than
the changes behavior, but it does count rearranged lines within a file as much
as other changes. The resulting output is consistent with what you get from
the other --*stat options.
files
Compute the dirstat numbers by counting the
number of files changed. Each changed file counts equally in the dirstat
analysis. This is the computationally cheapest --dirstat behavior, since it
does not have to look at the file contents at all.
cumulative
Count changes in a child directory for the
parent directory as well. Note that when using cumulative, the sum of the
percentages reported may exceed 100%. The default (non-cumulative) behavior
can be specified with the noncumulative parameter.
<limit>
An integer parameter specifies a cut-off
percent (3% by default). Directories contributing less than this percentage of
the changes are not shown in the output.
Output a condensed summary of extended header
information such as creations, renames and mode changes.
--no-renames
Turn off rename detection, even when the
configuration file gives the default to do so.
--full-index
Instead of the first handful of characters,
show the full pre- and post-image blob object names on the "index"
line when generating patch format output.
--binary
In addition to --full-index, output a binary
diff that can be applied with git-apply.
--abbrev[=<n>]
Instead of showing the full 40-byte
hexadecimal object name in diff-raw format output and diff-tree header lines,
show only a partial prefix. This is independent of the --full-index option
above, which controls the diff-patch output format. Non default number of
digits can be specified with --abbrev=<n>.
-B[<n>][/<m>], --break-rewrites[=[<n>][/<m>]]
Break complete rewrite changes into pairs of
delete and create. This serves two purposes:
It affects the way a change that amounts to a total rewrite of a file not as a
series of deletion and insertion mixed together with a very few lines that
happen to match textually as the context, but as a single deletion of
everything old followed by a single insertion of everything new, and the
number m controls this aspect of the -B option (defaults to 60%). -B/70%
specifies that less than 30% of the original should remain in the result for
git to consider it a total rewrite (i.e. otherwise the resulting patch will be
a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with context lines).
When used with -M, a totally-rewritten file is also considered as the source of
a rename (usually -M only considers a file that disappeared as the source of a
rename), and the number n controls this aspect of the -B option (defaults to
50%). -B20% specifies that a change with addition and deletion compared to 20%
or more of the file’s size are eligible for being picked up as a
possible source of a rename to another file.
-M[<n>], --find-renames[=<n>]
Detect renames. If n is specified, it is a
threshold on the similarity index (i.e. amount of addition/deletions compared
to the file’s size). For example, -M90% means git should consider a
delete/add pair to be a rename if more than 90% of the file hasn’t
changed.
-C[<n>], --find-copies[=<n>]
Detect copies as well as renames. See also
--find-copies-harder. If n is specified, it has the same meaning as for
-M<n>.
--find-copies-harder
For performance reasons, by default, -C option
finds copies only if the original file of the copy was modified in the same
changeset. This flag makes the command inspect unmodified files as candidates
for the source of copy. This is a very expensive operation for large projects,
so use it with caution. Giving more than one -C option has the same
effect.
-D, --irreversible-delete
Omit the preimage for deletes, i.e. print only
the header but not the diff between the preimage and /dev/null. The resulting
patch is not meant to be applied with patch nor git apply; this is solely for
people who want to just concentrate on reviewing the text after the change. In
addition, the output obviously lack enough information to apply such a patch
in reverse, even manually, hence the name of the option.
When used together with -B, omit also the preimage in the deletion part of a
delete/create pair.
-l<num>
The -M and -C options require O(n^2)
processing time where n is the number of potential rename/copy targets. This
option prevents rename/copy detection from running if the number of
rename/copy targets exceeds the specified number.
-O<orderfile>
Output the patch in the order specified in the
<orderfile>, which has one shell glob pattern per line.
-a, --text
Treat all files as text.
--ignore-space-at-eol
Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
-b, --ignore-space-change
Ignore changes in amount of whitespace. This
ignores whitespace at line end, and considers all other sequences of one or
more whitespace characters to be equivalent.
-w, --ignore-all-space
Ignore whitespace when comparing lines. This
ignores differences even if one line has whitespace where the other line has
none.
--inter-hunk-context=<lines>
Show the context between diff hunks, up to the
specified number of lines, thereby fusing hunks that are close to each
other.
-W, --function-context
Show whole surrounding functions of
changes.
--ext-diff
Allow an external diff helper to be executed.
If you set an external diff driver with gitattributes(5), you need to
use this option with git-log(1) and friends.
--no-ext-diff
Disallow external diff drivers.
--textconv, --no-textconv
Allow (or disallow) external text conversion
filters to be run when comparing binary files. See gitattributes(5) for
details. Because textconv filters are typically a one-way conversion, the
resulting diff is suitable for human consumption, but cannot be applied. For
this reason, textconv filters are enabled by default only for
git-diff(1) and git-log(1), but not for
git-format-patch(1) or diff plumbing commands.
--ignore-submodules[=<when>]
Ignore changes to submodules in the diff
generation. <when> can be either "none",
"untracked", "dirty" or "all", which is the
default Using "none" will consider the submodule modified when it
either contains untracked or modified files or its HEAD differs from the
commit recorded in the superproject and can be used to override any settings
of the ignore option in git-config(1) or gitmodules(5).
When "untracked" is used submodules are not considered dirty when
they only contain untracked content (but they are still scanned for modified
content). Using "dirty" ignores all changes to the work tree of
submodules, only changes to the commits stored in the superproject are shown
(this was the behavior until 1.7.0). Using "all" hides all changes
to submodules.
--src-prefix=<prefix>
Show the given source prefix instead of
"a/".
--dst-prefix=<prefix>
Show the given destination prefix instead of
"b/".
--no-prefix
Do not show any source or destination
prefix.
Prepare patches from the topmost <n>
commits.
-o <dir>, --output-directory <dir>
Use <dir> to store the resulting files,
instead of the current working directory.
-n, --numbered
Name output in [PATCH n/m] format, even
with a single patch.
-N, --no-numbered
Name output in [PATCH] format.
--start-number <n>
Start numbering the patches at <n>
instead of 1.
--numbered-files
Output file names will be a simple number
sequence without the default first line of the commit appended.
-k, --keep-subject
Do not strip/add [PATCH] from the first
line of the commit log message.
-s, --signoff
Add Signed-off-by: line to the commit message,
using the committer identity of yourself.
--stdout
Print all commits to the standard output in
mbox format, instead of creating a file for each one.
--attach[=<boundary>]
Create multipart/mixed attachment, the first
part of which is the commit message and the patch itself in the second part,
with Content-Disposition: attachment.
--no-attach
Disable the creation of an attachment,
overriding the configuration setting.
--inline[=<boundary>]
Create multipart/mixed attachment, the first
part of which is the commit message and the patch itself in the second part,
with Content-Disposition: inline.
--thread[=<style>], --no-thread
Controls addition of In-Reply-To and
References headers to make the second and subsequent mails appear as replies
to the first. Also controls generation of the Message-Id header to reference.
The optional <style> argument can be either shallow or deep.
shallow threading makes every mail a reply to the head of the series,
where the head is chosen from the cover letter, the --in-reply-to, and the
first patch mail, in this order. deep threading makes every mail a
reply to the previous one.
The default is --no-thread, unless the format.thread configuration is
set. If --thread is specified without a style, it defaults to the style
specified by format.thread if any, or else shallow.
Beware that the default for git send-email is to thread emails itself. If
you want git format-patch to take care of threading, you will want to ensure
that threading is disabled for git send-email.
--in-reply-to=Message-Id
Make the first mail (or all the mails with
--no-thread) appear as a reply to the given Message-Id, which avoids breaking
threads to provide a new patch series.
--ignore-if-in-upstream
Do not include a patch that matches a commit
in <until>..<since>. This will examine all patches reachable from
<since> but not from <until> and compare them with the patches
being generated, and any patch that matches is ignored.
--subject-prefix=<Subject-Prefix>
Instead of the standard [PATCH] prefix
in the subject line, instead use [<Subject-Prefix>]. This allows
for useful naming of a patch series, and can be combined with the --numbered
option.
--to=<email>
Add a To: header to the email headers. This is
in addition to any configured headers, and may be used multiple times. The
negated form --no-to discards all To: headers added so far (from config or
command line).
--cc=<email>
Add a Cc: header to the email headers. This is
in addition to any configured headers, and may be used multiple times. The
negated form --no-cc discards all Cc: headers added so far (from config or
command line).
--add-header=<header>
Add an arbitrary header to the email headers.
This is in addition to any configured headers, and may be used multiple times.
For example, --add-header="Organization: git-foo". The negated form
--no-add-header discards all (To:, Cc:, and custom) headers added so
far from config or command line.
--cover-letter
In addition to the patches, generate a cover
letter file containing the shortlog and the overall diffstat. You can fill in
a description in the file before sending it out.
--[no]-signature=<signature>
Add a signature to each message produced. Per
RFC 3676 the signature is separated from the body by a line with '-- ' on it.
If the signature option is omitted the signature defaults to the git version
number.
--suffix=.<sfx>
Instead of using .patch as the suffix for
generated filenames, use specified suffix. A common alternative is
--suffix=.txt. Leaving this empty will remove the .patch suffix.
Note that the leading character does not have to be a dot; for example, you can
use --suffix=-patch to get 0001-description-of-my-change-patch.
--quiet
Do not print the names of the generated files
to standard output.
--no-binary
Do not output contents of changes in binary
files, instead display a notice that those files changed. Patches generated
using this option cannot be applied properly, but they are still useful for
code review.
--root
Treat the revision argument as a <revision
range>, even if it is just a single commit (that would normally be treated
as a <since>). Note that root commits included in the specified range
are always formatted as creation patches, independently of this flag.
CONFIGURATION¶
You can specify extra mail header lines to be added to each message, defaults for the subject prefix and file suffix, number patches when outputting more than one patch, add "To" or "Cc:" headers, configure attachments, and sign off patches with configuration variables.[format] headers = "Organization: git-foo\n" subjectprefix = CHANGE suffix = .txt numbered = auto to = <email> cc = <email> attach [ = mime-boundary-string ] signoff = true
DISCUSSION¶
The patch produced by git format-patch is in UNIX mailbox format, with a fixed "magic" time stamp to indicate that the file is output from format-patch rather than a real mailbox, like so:From 8f72bad1baf19a53459661343e21d6491c3908d3 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Tony Luck <tony.luck@intel.com> Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 11:42:54 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] =?UTF-8?q?[IA64]=20Put=20ia64=20config=20files=20on=20the=20?= =?UTF-8?q?Uwe=20Kleine-K=C3=B6nig=20diet?= MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit arch/arm config files were slimmed down using a python script (See commit c2330e286f68f1c408b4aa6515ba49d57f05beae comment) Do the same for ia64 so we can have sleek & trim looking ...
... > So we should do such-and-such. Makes sense to me. How about this patch? -- >8 -- Subject: [IA64] Put ia64 config files on the Uwe Kleine-König diet arch/arm config files were slimmed down using a python script ...
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.
•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
•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 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.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. 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.
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.
mail.html_compose => false mail.identity.default.compose_html => false mail.identity.id?.compose_html => false
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¶
•Extract commits between revisions R1
and R2, and apply them on top of the current branch using git am to
cherry-pick them:
$ git format-patch -k --stdout R1..R2 | git am -3 -k
•Extract all commits which are in the
current branch but not in the origin branch:
For each commit a separate file is created in the current directory.
$ git format-patch origin
•Extract all commits that lead to
origin since the inception of the project:
$ git format-patch --root origin
•The same as the previous one:
Additionally, it detects and handles renames and complete rewrites intelligently
to produce a renaming patch. A renaming patch reduces the amount of text
output, and generally makes it easier to review. Note that non-git
"patch" programs won’t understand renaming patches, so use it
only when you know the recipient uses git to apply your patch.
$ git format-patch -M -B origin
•Extract three topmost commits from the
current branch and format them as e-mailable patches:
$ git format-patch -3
SEE ALSO¶
git-am(1), git-send-email(1)GIT¶
Part of the git(1) suite03/19/2016 | Git 1.7.10.4 |