Git and submitting patches to fix bugs

Git and submitting patches to fix bugs

[John Wiegley]

For those who've not yet used this feature of Git, it's fairly easy to submit
patches to fix Emacs bugs. Let's take issue #21895 as an example:

    <In your Git clone of Emacs, hack on the bug until ready>

    git commit -a -m "Your description of the fix"
    git format-patch --to 21895@debbugs.gnu.org HEAD^..
    git send-email --smtp-server=$SMTP *.patch

If you have an SMTP server on localhost, you may not need that argument. If
you have more commits than just one, use HEAD~<n>, where n is the number of
commits you want to submit. Or, if you fixed the bug in a local branch, use
"master..", or whichever branch you branched from.

On the developer side, who approves of and wants to apply the patch, save the
e-mail(s) to a file and use:

    git am <path to mbox file>

To see what bugs are coming up that you might want to look at, you can
subscribe to the bugs mailing list.

John

Re: Git and submitting patches to fix bugs

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: John Wiegley <jwiegley@gmail.com>
> Date: Thu, 12 Nov 2015 16:38:31 -0800
> 
>     git commit -a -m "Your description of the fix"
>     git format-patch --to 21895@debbugs.gnu.org HEAD^..
>     git send-email --smtp-server=$SMTP *.patch

The last command is unlikely to work with any no-trivial email setup
(e.g., if some authentication is needed) without some preliminary
configuration.  So perhaps using --compose is a better recommendation,
assuming the people here already have some email setup for Emacs.

Ideally, VC should have support for this, of course, in which case the
Emacs email setup will be used automatically.

Re: Git and submitting patches to fix bugs

[John Wiegley]

>>>>> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> Ideally, VC should have support for this, of course, in which case the Emacs
> email setup will be used automatically.

Even better, there's no reason we can't write something to automate all of
this for future contributors. I.e.:

 1. in your clone of Emacs, fix some stuff
 2. commit
 3. hit a key to submit your fix
 4. get prompted with an issue number
 5. done (assuming sendmail-send-it actually sends)

I'll see what I can get done, unless someone else wants a hand at it.

In general, it might be a good idea for us to have an Emacs module written
just for Emacs development contributors, with commands to streamline our
process.

Another command: You're in a Git repository for a project that's on ELPA; one
key should be all you need to update your local clone of ELPA, and find
yourself in a commit buffer to describe the update.

John

Re: Git and submitting patches to fix bugs

[Marcin Borkowski]

On 2015-11-13, at 16:44, John Wiegley <jwiegley@gmail.com> wrote:

>>>>>> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
>
>> Ideally, VC should have support for this, of course, in which case the Emacs
>> email setup will be used automatically.
>
> Even better, there's no reason we can't write something to automate all of
> this for future contributors. I.e.:
>
>  1. in your clone of Emacs, fix some stuff
>  2. commit
>  3. hit a key to submit your fix
>  4. get prompted with an issue number
>  5. done (assuming sendmail-send-it actually sends)
>
> I'll see what I can get done, unless someone else wants a hand at it.
>
> In general, it might be a good idea for us to have an Emacs module written
> just for Emacs development contributors, with commands to streamline our
> process.

This is a very good idea, though I'd prefer a Magit plugin/extension.

> Another command: You're in a Git repository for a project that's on ELPA; one
> key should be all you need to update your local clone of ELPA, and find
> yourself in a commit buffer to describe the update.
>
> John

Best,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
Adam Mickiewicz University

Re: Git and submitting patches to fix bugs

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > > In general, it might be a good idea for us to have an Emacs module written
  > > just for Emacs development contributors, with commands to streamline our
  > > process.

  > This is a very good idea, though I'd prefer a Magit plugin/extension.

We would like to have the features of Magit in Emacs,
but we can't use Magit since the developers of Magit
did not arrange the legal papers.

Thus we seek people to implement those features afresh
with code that we can include in Emacs.

Rather than basing any further work on Magit, we should
do further work so that it will function in the Emacs
that we distribute.


-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org)
Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.

Re: Git and submitting patches to fix bugs

[Marcin Borkowski]

On 2015-11-13, at 23:03, Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:

> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
>   > > In general, it might be a good idea for us to have an Emacs module written
>   > > just for Emacs development contributors, with commands to streamline our
>   > > process.
>
>   > This is a very good idea, though I'd prefer a Magit plugin/extension.
>
> We would like to have the features of Magit in Emacs,
> but we can't use Magit since the developers of Magit
> did not arrange the legal papers.
>
> Thus we seek people to implement those features afresh
> with code that we can include in Emacs.
>
> Rather than basing any further work on Magit, we should
> do further work so that it will function in the Emacs
> that we distribute.

I see.  Still, I would hope for an "unofficial" Magit extension for this
purpose.  And even in the absence of that, a VC extension for submitting
patches would be great.

Best,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
Adam Mickiewicz University

Re: Git and submitting patches to fix bugs

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  >   And even in the absence of that, a VC extension for submitting
  > patches would be great.

What would a VC extension for submitting patches do?
What sort of features would you like?

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org)
Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.

Re: Git and submitting patches to fix bugs

[Marcin Borkowski]

On 2015-11-14, at 22:06, Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:

> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
>   >   And even in the absence of that, a VC extension for submitting
>   > patches would be great.
>
> What would a VC extension for submitting patches do?
> What sort of features would you like?

Something like John described earlier in this thread.

Best,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
Adam Mickiewicz University

Re: Git and submitting patches to fix bugs

[John Wiegley]

>>>>> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> Ideally, VC should have support for this, of course, in which case the Emacs
> email setup will be used automatically.

Yes, that sounds like a good approach.

John