6 git-format-patch - Prepare patches for e-mail submission
12 'git format-patch' [-k] [(-o|--output-directory) <dir> | --stdout]
13 [--no-thread | --thread[=<style>]]
14 [(--attach|--inline)[=<boundary>] | --no-attach]
16 [--signature=<signature> | --no-signature]
17 [--signature-file=<file>]
18 [-n | --numbered | -N | --no-numbered]
19 [--start-number <n>] [--numbered-files]
20 [--in-reply-to=Message-Id] [--suffix=.<sfx>]
21 [--ignore-if-in-upstream]
22 [--rfc] [--subject-prefix=Subject-Prefix]
23 [(--reroll-count|-v) <n>]
24 [--to=<email>] [--cc=<email>]
25 [--[no-]cover-letter] [--quiet] [--notes[=<ref>]]
26 [<common diff options>]
27 [ <since> | <revision range> ]
32 Prepare each commit with its patch in
33 one file per commit, formatted to resemble UNIX mailbox format.
34 The output of this command is convenient for e-mail submission or
35 for use with 'git am'.
37 There are two ways to specify which commits to operate on.
39 1. A single commit, <since>, specifies that the commits leading
40 to the tip of the current branch that are not in the history
41 that leads to the <since> to be output.
43 2. Generic <revision range> expression (see "SPECIFYING
44 REVISIONS" section in linkgit:gitrevisions[7]) means the
45 commits in the specified range.
47 The first rule takes precedence in the case of a single <commit>. To
48 apply the second rule, i.e., format everything since the beginning of
49 history up until <commit>, use the '\--root' option: `git format-patch
50 --root <commit>`. If you want to format only <commit> itself, you
51 can do this with `git format-patch -1 <commit>`.
53 By default, each output file is numbered sequentially from 1, and uses the
54 first line of the commit message (massaged for pathname safety) as
55 the filename. With the `--numbered-files` option, the output file names
56 will only be numbers, without the first line of the commit appended.
57 The names of the output files are printed to standard
58 output, unless the `--stdout` option is specified.
60 If `-o` is specified, output files are created in <dir>. Otherwise
61 they are created in the current working directory. The default path
62 can be set with the `format.outputDirectory` configuration option.
63 The `-o` option takes precedence over `format.outputDirectory`.
64 To store patches in the current working directory even when
65 `format.outputDirectory` points elsewhere, use `-o .`.
67 By default, the subject of a single patch is "[PATCH] " followed by
68 the concatenation of lines from the commit message up to the first blank
69 line (see the DISCUSSION section of linkgit:git-commit[1]).
71 When multiple patches are output, the subject prefix will instead be
72 "[PATCH n/m] ". To force 1/1 to be added for a single patch, use `-n`.
73 To omit patch numbers from the subject, use `-N`.
75 If given `--thread`, `git-format-patch` will generate `In-Reply-To` and
76 `References` headers to make the second and subsequent patch mails appear
77 as replies to the first mail; this also generates a `Message-Id` header to
83 include::diff-options.txt[]
86 Prepare patches from the topmost <n> commits.
89 --output-directory <dir>::
90 Use <dir> to store the resulting files, instead of the
91 current working directory.
95 Name output in '[PATCH n/m]' format, even with a single patch.
99 Name output in '[PATCH]' format.
102 Start numbering the patches at <n> instead of 1.
105 Output file names will be a simple number sequence
106 without the default first line of the commit appended.
110 Do not strip/add '[PATCH]' from the first line of the
115 Add `Signed-off-by:` line to the commit message, using
116 the committer identity of yourself.
117 See the signoff option in linkgit:git-commit[1] for more information.
120 Print all commits to the standard output in mbox format,
121 instead of creating a file for each one.
123 --attach[=<boundary>]::
124 Create multipart/mixed attachment, the first part of
125 which is the commit message and the patch itself in the
126 second part, with `Content-Disposition: attachment`.
129 Disable the creation of an attachment, overriding the
130 configuration setting.
132 --inline[=<boundary>]::
133 Create multipart/mixed attachment, the first part of
134 which is the commit message and the patch itself in the
135 second part, with `Content-Disposition: inline`.
139 Controls addition of `In-Reply-To` and `References` headers to
140 make the second and subsequent mails appear as replies to the
141 first. Also controls generation of the `Message-Id` header to
144 The optional <style> argument can be either `shallow` or `deep`.
145 'shallow' threading makes every mail a reply to the head of the
146 series, where the head is chosen from the cover letter, the
147 `--in-reply-to`, and the first patch mail, in this order. 'deep'
148 threading makes every mail a reply to the previous one.
150 The default is `--no-thread`, unless the `format.thread` configuration
151 is set. If `--thread` is specified without a style, it defaults to the
152 style specified by `format.thread` if any, or else `shallow`.
154 Beware that the default for 'git send-email' is to thread emails
155 itself. If you want `git format-patch` to take care of threading, you
156 will want to ensure that threading is disabled for `git send-email`.
158 --in-reply-to=Message-Id::
159 Make the first mail (or all the mails with `--no-thread`) appear as a
160 reply to the given Message-Id, which avoids breaking threads to
161 provide a new patch series.
163 --ignore-if-in-upstream::
164 Do not include a patch that matches a commit in
165 <until>..<since>. This will examine all patches reachable
166 from <since> but not from <until> and compare them with the
167 patches being generated, and any patch that matches is
170 --subject-prefix=<Subject-Prefix>::
171 Instead of the standard '[PATCH]' prefix in the subject
172 line, instead use '[<Subject-Prefix>]'. This
173 allows for useful naming of a patch series, and can be
174 combined with the `--numbered` option.
177 Alias for `--subject-prefix="RFC PATCH"`. RFC means "Request For
178 Comments"; use this when sending an experimental patch for
179 discussion rather than application.
183 Mark the series as the <n>-th iteration of the topic. The
184 output filenames have `v<n>` prepended to them, and the
185 subject prefix ("PATCH" by default, but configurable via the
186 `--subject-prefix` option) has ` v<n>` appended to it. E.g.
187 `--reroll-count=4` may produce `v4-0001-add-makefile.patch`
188 file that has "Subject: [PATCH v4 1/20] Add makefile" in it.
191 Add a `To:` header to the email headers. This is in addition
192 to any configured headers, and may be used multiple times.
193 The negated form `--no-to` discards all `To:` headers added so
194 far (from config or command line).
197 Add a `Cc:` header to the email headers. This is in addition
198 to any configured headers, and may be used multiple times.
199 The negated form `--no-cc` discards all `Cc:` headers added so
200 far (from config or command line).
204 Use `ident` in the `From:` header of each commit email. If the
205 author ident of the commit is not textually identical to the
206 provided `ident`, place a `From:` header in the body of the
207 message with the original author. If no `ident` is given, use
210 Note that this option is only useful if you are actually sending the
211 emails and want to identify yourself as the sender, but retain the
212 original author (and `git am` will correctly pick up the in-body
213 header). Note also that `git send-email` already handles this
214 transformation for you, and this option should not be used if you are
215 feeding the result to `git send-email`.
217 --add-header=<header>::
218 Add an arbitrary header to the email headers. This is in addition
219 to any configured headers, and may be used multiple times.
220 For example, `--add-header="Organization: git-foo"`.
221 The negated form `--no-add-header` discards *all* (`To:`,
222 `Cc:`, and custom) headers added so far from config or command
225 --[no-]cover-letter::
226 In addition to the patches, generate a cover letter file
227 containing the branch description, shortlog and the overall diffstat. You can
228 fill in a description in the file before sending it out.
231 Append the notes (see linkgit:git-notes[1]) for the commit
232 after the three-dash line.
234 The expected use case of this is to write supporting explanation for
235 the commit that does not belong to the commit log message proper,
236 and include it with the patch submission. While one can simply write
237 these explanations after `format-patch` has run but before sending,
238 keeping them as Git notes allows them to be maintained between versions
239 of the patch series (but see the discussion of the `notes.rewrite`
240 configuration options in linkgit:git-notes[1] to use this workflow).
242 --[no-]signature=<signature>::
243 Add a signature to each message produced. Per RFC 3676 the signature
244 is separated from the body by a line with '-- ' on it. If the
245 signature option is omitted the signature defaults to the Git version
248 --signature-file=<file>::
249 Works just like --signature except the signature is read from a file.
252 Instead of using `.patch` as the suffix for generated
253 filenames, use specified suffix. A common alternative is
254 `--suffix=.txt`. Leaving this empty will remove the `.patch`
257 Note that the leading character does not have to be a dot; for example,
258 you can use `--suffix=-patch` to get `0001-description-of-my-change-patch`.
262 Do not print the names of the generated files to standard output.
265 Do not output contents of changes in binary files, instead
266 display a notice that those files changed. Patches generated
267 using this option cannot be applied properly, but they are
268 still useful for code review.
271 Output an all-zero hash in each patch's From header instead
272 of the hash of the commit.
275 Record the base tree information to identify the state the
276 patch series applies to. See the BASE TREE INFORMATION section
280 Treat the revision argument as a <revision range>, even if it
281 is just a single commit (that would normally be treated as a
282 <since>). Note that root commits included in the specified
283 range are always formatted as creation patches, independently
288 You can specify extra mail header lines to be added to each message,
289 defaults for the subject prefix and file suffix, number patches when
290 outputting more than one patch, add "To" or "Cc:" headers, configure
291 attachments, and sign off patches with configuration variables.
295 headers = "Organization: git-foo\n"
296 subjectPrefix = CHANGE
301 attach [ = mime-boundary-string ]
310 The patch produced by 'git format-patch' is in UNIX mailbox format,
311 with a fixed "magic" time stamp to indicate that the file is output
312 from format-patch rather than a real mailbox, like so:
315 From 8f72bad1baf19a53459661343e21d6491c3908d3 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
316 From: Tony Luck <tony.luck@intel.com>
317 Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 11:42:54 -0700
318 Subject: [PATCH] =?UTF-8?q?[IA64]=20Put=20ia64=20config=20files=20on=20the=20?=
319 =?UTF-8?q?Uwe=20Kleine-K=C3=B6nig=20diet?=
321 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
322 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
324 arch/arm config files were slimmed down using a python script
325 (See commit c2330e286f68f1c408b4aa6515ba49d57f05beae comment)
327 Do the same for ia64 so we can have sleek & trim looking
331 Typically it will be placed in a MUA's drafts folder, edited to add
332 timely commentary that should not go in the changelog after the three
333 dashes, and then sent as a message whose body, in our example, starts
334 with "arch/arm config files were...". On the receiving end, readers
335 can save interesting patches in a UNIX mailbox and apply them with
338 When a patch is part of an ongoing discussion, the patch generated by
339 'git format-patch' can be tweaked to take advantage of the 'git am
340 --scissors' feature. After your response to the discussion comes a
341 line that consists solely of "`-- >8 --`" (scissors and perforation),
342 followed by the patch with unnecessary header fields removed:
346 > So we should do such-and-such.
348 Makes sense to me. How about this patch?
351 Subject: [IA64] Put ia64 config files on the Uwe Kleine-König diet
353 arch/arm config files were slimmed down using a python script
357 When sending a patch this way, most often you are sending your own
358 patch, so in addition to the "`From $SHA1 $magic_timestamp`" marker you
359 should omit `From:` and `Date:` lines from the patch file. The patch
360 title is likely to be different from the subject of the discussion the
361 patch is in response to, so it is likely that you would want to keep
362 the Subject: line, like the example above.
364 Checking for patch corruption
365 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
366 Many mailers if not set up properly will corrupt whitespace. Here are
367 two common types of corruption:
369 * Empty context lines that do not have _any_ whitespace.
371 * Non-empty context lines that have one extra whitespace at the
374 One way to test if your MUA is set up correctly is:
376 * Send the patch to yourself, exactly the way you would, except
377 with To: and Cc: lines that do not contain the list and
380 * Save that patch to a file in UNIX mailbox format. Call it a.patch,
385 $ git fetch <project> master:test-apply
386 $ git checkout test-apply
390 If it does not apply correctly, there can be various reasons.
392 * The patch itself does not apply cleanly. That is _bad_ but
393 does not have much to do with your MUA. You might want to rebase
394 the patch with linkgit:git-rebase[1] before regenerating it in
397 * The MUA corrupted your patch; "am" would complain that
398 the patch does not apply. Look in the .git/rebase-apply/ subdirectory and
399 see what 'patch' file contains and check for the common
400 corruption patterns mentioned above.
402 * While at it, check the 'info' and 'final-commit' files as well.
403 If what is in 'final-commit' is not exactly what you would want to
404 see in the commit log message, it is very likely that the
405 receiver would end up hand editing the log message when applying
406 your patch. Things like "Hi, this is my first patch.\n" in the
407 patch e-mail should come after the three-dash line that signals
408 the end of the commit message.
412 Here are some hints on how to successfully submit patches inline using
417 GMail does not have any way to turn off line wrapping in the web
418 interface, so it will mangle any emails that you send. You can however
419 use "git send-email" and send your patches through the GMail SMTP server, or
420 use any IMAP email client to connect to the google IMAP server and forward
421 the emails through that.
423 For hints on using 'git send-email' to send your patches through the
424 GMail SMTP server, see the EXAMPLE section of linkgit:git-send-email[1].
426 For hints on submission using the IMAP interface, see the EXAMPLE
427 section of linkgit:git-imap-send[1].
431 By default, Thunderbird will both wrap emails as well as flag
432 them as being 'format=flowed', both of which will make the
433 resulting email unusable by Git.
435 There are three different approaches: use an add-on to turn off line wraps,
436 configure Thunderbird to not mangle patches, or use
437 an external editor to keep Thunderbird from mangling the patches.
442 Install the Toggle Word Wrap add-on that is available from
443 https://addons.mozilla.org/thunderbird/addon/toggle-word-wrap/
444 It adds a menu entry "Enable Word Wrap" in the composer's "Options" menu
445 that you can tick off. Now you can compose the message as you otherwise do
446 (cut + paste, 'git format-patch' | 'git imap-send', etc), but you have to
447 insert line breaks manually in any text that you type.
449 Approach #2 (configuration)
450 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
453 1. Configure your mail server composition as plain text:
454 Edit...Account Settings...Composition & Addressing,
455 uncheck "Compose Messages in HTML".
457 2. Configure your general composition window to not wrap.
460 Edit..Preferences..Composition, wrap plain text messages at 0
463 Edit..Preferences..Advanced..Config Editor. Search for
464 "mail.wrap_long_lines".
465 Toggle it to make sure it is set to `false`. Also, search for
466 "mailnews.wraplength" and set the value to 0.
468 3. Disable the use of format=flowed:
469 Edit..Preferences..Advanced..Config Editor. Search for
470 "mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed".
471 Toggle it to make sure it is set to `false`.
473 After that is done, you should be able to compose email as you
474 otherwise would (cut + paste, 'git format-patch' | 'git imap-send', etc),
475 and the patches will not be mangled.
477 Approach #3 (external editor)
478 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
480 The following Thunderbird extensions are needed:
481 AboutConfig from http://aboutconfig.mozdev.org/ and
482 External Editor from http://globs.org/articles.php?lng=en&pg=8
484 1. Prepare the patch as a text file using your method of choice.
486 2. Before opening a compose window, use Edit->Account Settings to
487 uncheck the "Compose messages in HTML format" setting in the
488 "Composition & Addressing" panel of the account to be used to
491 3. In the main Thunderbird window, 'before' you open the compose
492 window for the patch, use Tools->about:config to set the
493 following to the indicated values:
496 mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed => false
497 mailnews.wraplength => 0
500 4. Open a compose window and click the external editor icon.
502 5. In the external editor window, read in the patch file and exit
505 Side note: it may be possible to do step 2 with
506 about:config and the following settings but no one's tried yet.
509 mail.html_compose => false
510 mail.identity.default.compose_html => false
511 mail.identity.id?.compose_html => false
514 There is a script in contrib/thunderbird-patch-inline which can help
515 you include patches with Thunderbird in an easy way. To use it, do the
516 steps above and then use the script as the external editor.
520 This should help you to submit patches inline using KMail.
522 1. Prepare the patch as a text file.
524 2. Click on New Mail.
526 3. Go under "Options" in the Composer window and be sure that
527 "Word wrap" is not set.
529 4. Use Message -> Insert file... and insert the patch.
531 5. Back in the compose window: add whatever other text you wish to the
532 message, complete the addressing and subject fields, and press send.
534 BASE TREE INFORMATION
535 ---------------------
537 The base tree information block is used for maintainers or third party
538 testers to know the exact state the patch series applies to. It consists
539 of the 'base commit', which is a well-known commit that is part of the
540 stable part of the project history everybody else works off of, and zero
541 or more 'prerequisite patches', which are well-known patches in flight
542 that is not yet part of the 'base commit' that need to be applied on top
543 of 'base commit' in topological order before the patches can be applied.
545 The 'base commit' is shown as "base-commit: " followed by the 40-hex of
546 the commit object name. A 'prerequisite patch' is shown as
547 "prerequisite-patch-id: " followed by the 40-hex 'patch id', which can
548 be obtained by passing the patch through the `git patch-id --stable`
551 Imagine that on top of the public commit P, you applied well-known
552 patches X, Y and Z from somebody else, and then built your three-patch
553 series A, B, C, the history would be like:
555 ................................................
556 ---P---X---Y---Z---A---B---C
557 ................................................
559 With `git format-patch --base=P -3 C` (or variants thereof, e.g. with
560 `--cover-letter` or using `Z..C` instead of `-3 C` to specify the
561 range), the base tree information block is shown at the end of the
562 first message the command outputs (either the first patch, or the
563 cover letter), like this:
567 prerequisite-patch-id: X
568 prerequisite-patch-id: Y
569 prerequisite-patch-id: Z
572 For non-linear topology, such as
574 ................................................
578 ................................................
580 You can also use `git format-patch --base=P -3 C` to generate patches
581 for A, B and C, and the identifiers for P, X, Y, Z are appended at the
582 end of the first message.
584 If set `--base=auto` in cmdline, it will track base commit automatically,
585 the base commit will be the merge base of tip commit of the remote-tracking
586 branch and revision-range specified in cmdline.
587 For a local branch, you need to track a remote branch by `git branch
588 --set-upstream-to` before using this option.
593 * Extract commits between revisions R1 and R2, and apply them on top of
594 the current branch using 'git am' to cherry-pick them:
597 $ git format-patch -k --stdout R1..R2 | git am -3 -k
600 * Extract all commits which are in the current branch but not in the
604 $ git format-patch origin
607 For each commit a separate file is created in the current directory.
609 * Extract all commits that lead to 'origin' since the inception of the
613 $ git format-patch --root origin
616 * The same as the previous one:
619 $ git format-patch -M -B origin
622 Additionally, it detects and handles renames and complete rewrites
623 intelligently to produce a renaming patch. A renaming patch reduces
624 the amount of text output, and generally makes it easier to review.
625 Note that non-Git "patch" programs won't understand renaming patches, so
626 use it only when you know the recipient uses Git to apply your patch.
628 * Extract three topmost commits from the current branch and format them
629 as e-mailable patches:
632 $ git format-patch -3
637 linkgit:git-am[1], linkgit:git-send-email[1]
641 Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite
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