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333 lines
12 KiB
333 lines
12 KiB
I started reading over the SubmittingPatches document for Linux |
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kernel, primarily because I wanted to have a document similar to |
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it for the core GIT to make sure people understand what they are |
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doing when they write "Signed-off-by" line. |
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But the patch submission requirements are a lot more relaxed |
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here on the technical/contents front, because the core GIT is |
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thousand times smaller ;-). So here is only the relevant bits. |
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(1) Make separate commits for logically separate changes. |
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Unless your patch is really trivial, you should not be sending |
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out a patch that was generated between your working tree and |
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your commit head. Instead, always make a commit with complete |
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commit message and generate a series of patches from your |
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repository. It is a good discipline. |
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Describe the technical detail of the change(s). |
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If your description starts to get too long, that's a sign that you |
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probably need to split up your commit to finer grained pieces. |
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Oh, another thing. I am picky about whitespaces. Make sure your |
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changes do not trigger errors with the sample pre-commit hook shipped |
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in templates/hooks--pre-commit. To help ensure this does not happen, |
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run git diff --check on your changes before you commit. |
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(2) Generate your patch using git tools out of your commits. |
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git based diff tools (git, Cogito, and StGIT included) generate |
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unidiff which is the preferred format. |
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You do not have to be afraid to use -M option to "git diff" or |
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"git format-patch", if your patch involves file renames. The |
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receiving end can handle them just fine. |
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Please make sure your patch does not include any extra files |
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which do not belong in a patch submission. Make sure to review |
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your patch after generating it, to ensure accuracy. Before |
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sending out, please make sure it cleanly applies to the "master" |
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branch head. If you are preparing a work based on "next" branch, |
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that is fine, but please mark it as such. |
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(3) Sending your patches. |
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People on the git mailing list need to be able to read and |
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comment on the changes you are submitting. It is important for |
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a developer to be able to "quote" your changes, using standard |
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e-mail tools, so that they may comment on specific portions of |
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your code. For this reason, all patches should be submitted |
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"inline". WARNING: Be wary of your MUAs word-wrap |
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corrupting your patch. Do not cut-n-paste your patch; you can |
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lose tabs that way if you are not careful. |
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It is a common convention to prefix your subject line with |
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[PATCH]. This lets people easily distinguish patches from other |
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e-mail discussions. |
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"git format-patch" command follows the best current practice to |
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format the body of an e-mail message. At the beginning of the |
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patch should come your commit message, ending with the |
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Signed-off-by: lines, and a line that consists of three dashes, |
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followed by the diffstat information and the patch itself. If |
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you are forwarding a patch from somebody else, optionally, at |
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the beginning of the e-mail message just before the commit |
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message starts, you can put a "From: " line to name that person. |
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You often want to add additional explanation about the patch, |
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other than the commit message itself. Place such "cover letter" |
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material between the three dash lines and the diffstat. |
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Do not attach the patch as a MIME attachment, compressed or not. |
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Do not let your e-mail client send quoted-printable. Do not let |
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your e-mail client send format=flowed which would destroy |
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whitespaces in your patches. Many |
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popular e-mail applications will not always transmit a MIME |
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attachment as plain text, making it impossible to comment on |
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your code. A MIME attachment also takes a bit more time to |
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process. This does not decrease the likelihood of your |
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MIME-attached change being accepted, but it makes it more likely |
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that it will be postponed. |
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Exception: If your mailer is mangling patches then someone may ask |
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you to re-send them using MIME, that is OK. |
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Do not PGP sign your patch, at least for now. Most likely, your |
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maintainer or other people on the list would not have your PGP |
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key and would not bother obtaining it anyway. Your patch is not |
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judged by who you are; a good patch from an unknown origin has a |
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far better chance of being accepted than a patch from a known, |
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respected origin that is done poorly or does incorrect things. |
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If you really really really really want to do a PGP signed |
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patch, format it as "multipart/signed", not a text/plain message |
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that starts with '-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----'. That is |
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not a text/plain, it's something else. |
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Note that your maintainer does not necessarily read everything |
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on the git mailing list. If your patch is for discussion first, |
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send it "To:" the mailing list, and optionally "cc:" him. If it |
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is trivially correct or after the list reached a consensus, send |
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it "To:" the maintainer and optionally "cc:" the list. |
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Also note that your maintainer does not actively involve himself in |
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maintaining what are in contrib/ hierarchy. When you send fixes and |
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enhancements to them, do not forget to "cc: " the person who primarily |
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worked on that hierarchy in contrib/. |
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(4) Sign your work |
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To improve tracking of who did what, we've borrowed the |
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"sign-off" procedure from the Linux kernel project on patches |
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that are being emailed around. Although core GIT is a lot |
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smaller project it is a good discipline to follow it. |
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The sign-off is a simple line at the end of the explanation for |
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the patch, which certifies that you wrote it or otherwise have |
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the right to pass it on as a open-source patch. The rules are |
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pretty simple: if you can certify the below: |
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Developer's Certificate of Origin 1.1 |
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By making a contribution to this project, I certify that: |
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(a) The contribution was created in whole or in part by me and I |
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have the right to submit it under the open source license |
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indicated in the file; or |
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(b) The contribution is based upon previous work that, to the best |
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of my knowledge, is covered under an appropriate open source |
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license and I have the right under that license to submit that |
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work with modifications, whether created in whole or in part |
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by me, under the same open source license (unless I am |
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permitted to submit under a different license), as indicated |
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in the file; or |
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(c) The contribution was provided directly to me by some other |
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person who certified (a), (b) or (c) and I have not modified |
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it. |
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(d) I understand and agree that this project and the contribution |
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are public and that a record of the contribution (including all |
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personal information I submit with it, including my sign-off) is |
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maintained indefinitely and may be redistributed consistent with |
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this project or the open source license(s) involved. |
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then you just add a line saying |
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Signed-off-by: Random J Developer <random@developer.example.org> |
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This line can be automatically added by git if you run the git-commit |
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command with the -s option. |
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Some people also put extra tags at the end. They'll just be ignored for |
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now, but you can do this to mark internal company procedures or just |
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point out some special detail about the sign-off. |
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------------------------------------------------ |
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MUA specific hints |
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Some of patches I receive or pick up from the list share common |
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patterns of breakage. Please make sure your MUA is set up |
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properly not to corrupt whitespaces. Here are two common ones |
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I have seen: |
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* Empty context lines that do not have _any_ whitespace. |
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* Non empty context lines that have one extra whitespace at the |
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beginning. |
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One test you could do yourself if your MUA is set up correctly is: |
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* Send the patch to yourself, exactly the way you would, except |
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To: and Cc: lines, which would not contain the list and |
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maintainer address. |
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* Save that patch to a file in UNIX mailbox format. Call it say |
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a.patch. |
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* Try to apply to the tip of the "master" branch from the |
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git.git public repository: |
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$ git fetch http://kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git master:test-apply |
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$ git checkout test-apply |
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$ git reset --hard |
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$ git applymbox a.patch |
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If it does not apply correctly, there can be various reasons. |
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* Your patch itself does not apply cleanly. That is _bad_ but |
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does not have much to do with your MUA. Please rebase the |
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patch appropriately. |
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* Your MUA corrupted your patch; applymbox would complain that |
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the patch does not apply. Look at .dotest/ subdirectory and |
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see what 'patch' file contains and check for the common |
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corruption patterns mentioned above. |
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* While you are at it, check what are in 'info' and |
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'final-commit' files as well. If what is in 'final-commit' is |
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not exactly what you would want to see in the commit log |
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message, it is very likely that your maintainer would end up |
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hand editing the log message when he applies your patch. |
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Things like "Hi, this is my first patch.\n", if you really |
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want to put in the patch e-mail, should come after the |
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three-dash line that signals the end of the commit message. |
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Pine |
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---- |
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(Johannes Schindelin) |
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I don't know how many people still use pine, but for those poor |
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souls it may be good to mention that the quell-flowed-text is |
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needed for recent versions. |
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... the "no-strip-whitespace-before-send" option, too. AFAIK it |
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was introduced in 4.60. |
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(Linus Torvalds) |
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And 4.58 needs at least this. |
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--- |
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diff-tree 8326dd8350be64ac7fc805f6563a1d61ad10d32c (from e886a61f76edf5410573e92e38ce22974f9c40f1) |
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Author: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@g5.osdl.org> |
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Date: Mon Aug 15 17:23:51 2005 -0700 |
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Fix pine whitespace-corruption bug |
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There's no excuse for unconditionally removing whitespace from |
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the pico buffers on close. |
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diff --git a/pico/pico.c b/pico/pico.c |
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--- a/pico/pico.c |
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+++ b/pico/pico.c |
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@@ -219,7 +219,9 @@ PICO *pm; |
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switch(pico_all_done){ /* prepare for/handle final events */ |
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case COMP_EXIT : /* already confirmed */ |
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packheader(); |
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+#if 0 |
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stripwhitespace(); |
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+#endif |
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c |= COMP_EXIT; |
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break; |
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(Daniel Barkalow) |
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> A patch to SubmittingPatches, MUA specific help section for |
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> users of Pine 4.63 would be very much appreciated. |
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Ah, it looks like a recent version changed the default behavior to do the |
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right thing, and inverted the sense of the configuration option. (Either |
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that or Gentoo did it.) So you need to set the |
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"no-strip-whitespace-before-send" option, unless the option you have is |
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"strip-whitespace-before-send", in which case you should avoid checking |
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it. |
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Thunderbird |
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----------- |
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(A Large Angry SCM) |
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Here are some hints on how to successfully submit patches inline using |
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Thunderbird. |
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This recipe appears to work with the current [*1*] Thunderbird from Suse. |
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The following Thunderbird extensions are needed: |
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AboutConfig 0.5 |
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http://aboutconfig.mozdev.org/ |
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External Editor 0.7.2 |
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http://globs.org/articles.php?lng=en&pg=8 |
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1) Prepare the patch as a text file using your method of choice. |
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2) Before opening a compose window, use Edit->Account Settings to |
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uncheck the "Compose messages in HTML format" setting in the |
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"Composition & Addressing" panel of the account to be used to send the |
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patch. [*2*] |
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3) In the main Thunderbird window, _before_ you open the compose window |
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for the patch, use Tools->about:config to set the following to the |
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indicated values: |
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mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed => false |
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mailnews.wraplength => 0 |
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4) Open a compose window and click the external editor icon. |
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5) In the external editor window, read in the patch file and exit the |
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editor normally. |
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6) Back in the compose window: Add whatever other text you wish to the |
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message, complete the addressing and subject fields, and press send. |
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7) Optionally, undo the about:config/account settings changes made in |
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steps 2 & 3. |
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[Footnotes] |
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*1* Version 1.0 (20041207) from the MozillaThunderbird-1.0-5 rpm of Suse |
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9.3 professional updates. |
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*2* It may be possible to do this with about:config and the following |
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settings but I haven't tried, yet. |
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mail.html_compose => false |
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mail.identity.default.compose_html => false |
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mail.identity.id?.compose_html => false |
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Gnus |
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---- |
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'|' in the *Summary* buffer can be used to pipe the current |
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message to an external program, and this is a handy way to drive |
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"git am". However, if the message is MIME encoded, what is |
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piped into the program is the representation you see in your |
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*Article* buffer after unwrapping MIME. This is often not what |
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you would want for two reasons. It tends to screw up non ASCII |
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characters (most notably in people's names), and also |
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whitespaces (fatal in patches). Running 'C-u g' to display the |
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message in raw form before using '|' to run the pipe can work |
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this problem around. |
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