[libvirt] patch submission: git send-email, format-patch or git diff

[Laine Stump]

On 05/03/2010 09:39 AM, Cole Robinson wrote:
>
> A simplification of my workflow is:
>
> git checkout master
> git pull
> git checkout -b workbranch
> Hack, committing any changes along the way
> git rebase -i to clean up the commits
>    

The one thing I would add here would be:

    git checkout master
    git pull
    git checkout workbranch
    git rebase master
    (fix any conflicts)

to bring your workbranch up to date with master, and make it less likely 
others would encounter conflicts when they try to apply your patches to 
their work tree.

> git format-patch -#
> git send-email
>    

I recently learned that git send-email will send directly from the git 
history, without the bother of using git format-patch to create 
intermediate files. For example:

     git send-email -1

will send an email containing the latest commit on the current branch.

     git send-email --compose -5

will open your editor of choice to compose an email introducing the 
patch series (you should put "[PATCH 0/n]" at the beginning of the 
subject where n is, in this example, 5). After you've saved that mail, 
it will send the introduction mail followed by a single email for each 
of the last 5 commits on the current branch.

I much prefer doing it this way, because I don't end up with tons of 
patchfiles lying around (which usually results in me sending the wrong 
set of files).