Help Sending Patch Series

Help Sending Patch Series

[Lee Thompson]

Hi All,

I've got a patch series made up for adding parinfer-rust-mode[1] to
Guix.  I'm following the instructions on the info page "Sending a Patch
Series".  I've sent off my cover letter patch to debbugs though after
around half a day I've received no issue number reply to send the rest
of my patches to.

I've tried a few times and I can see that the email has been sent by
Gmail, but still nothing.  I've even tried manually constructing and
sending the cover letter email with Gnus.  I can't find any info online
of how long this issue number reply is expected to take, is this normal
or have I made a mistake somewhere?

Apologies also if this isn't strictly a 'user help' topic, I wasn't sure
where would be more appropriate to post to.

Thanks!

[1]: https://github.com/justinbarclay/parinfer-rust-mode

Re: Help Sending Patch Series

[Ekaitz Zarraga]

Hi,

On 2024-11-01 11:09, Lee Thompson wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> I've got a patch series made up for adding parinfer-rust-mode[1] to
> Guix.  I'm following the instructions on the info page "Sending a Patch
> Series".  I've sent off my cover letter patch to debbugs though after
> around half a day I've received no issue number reply to send the rest
> of my patches to.
> 
> I've tried a few times and I can see that the email has been sent by
> Gmail, but still nothing.  I've even tried manually constructing and
> sending the cover letter email with Gnus.  I can't find any info online
> of how long this issue number reply is expected to take, is this normal
> or have I made a mistake somewhere?
> 
> Apologies also if this isn't strictly a 'user help' topic, I wasn't sure
> where would be more appropriate to post to.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> [1]: https://github.com/justinbarclay/parinfer-rust-mode
> 


The email should be sent to you pretty soon since your cover letter is 
sent. Which address did you send your email to?

Is this the first patch you send to Guix?

I don't know if that address is also moderated, it might be, si maybe 
it's that?

Re: Help Sending Patch Series

[Lee Thompson]

Ekaitz I've replied to you just a minute ago without CCing
the mailing list, my apologies for the double reply.

Ekaitz Zarraga <ekaitz@elenq.tech> writes:

> The email should be sent to you pretty soon since your cover letter is
> sent. Which address did you send your email to?
I sent this to guix-patches@debbugs.gnu.org like so:
```
git send-email outgoing/0000-cover-letter.patch -a \
    --to=guix-patches@debbugs.gnu.org \
           $(etc/teams.scm cc mentors)
```

> Is this the first patch you send to Guix?
Indeed

> I don't know if that address is also moderated, it might be, si maybe
> it's that?
You could be right, I've just noticed this in the "Submitting Patches"
info page:
>    Expect some delay when you submit your very first patch to
> <guix-patches@gnu.org>.  You have to wait until you get an
> acknowledgement with the assigned tracking number.  Future
> acknowledgements should not be delayed.

Re: Help Sending Patch Series

[Maxim Cournoyer]

It should be guix-patches@gnu.org, not @debbugs.gnu.org

On November 1, 2024 7:57:02 PM GMT+09:00, Lee Thompson <lee.p.thomp@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>Ekaitz I've replied to you just a minute ago without CCing
>the mailing list, my apologies for the double reply.
>
>Ekaitz Zarraga <ekaitz@elenq.tech> writes:
>
>> The email should be sent to you pretty soon since your cover letter is
>> sent. Which address did you send your email to?
>I sent this to guix-patches@debbugs.gnu.org like so:
>```
>git send-email outgoing/0000-cover-letter.patch -a \
>    --to=guix-patches@debbugs.gnu.org \
>           $(etc/teams.scm cc mentors)
>```
>
>> Is this the first patch you send to Guix?
>Indeed
>
>> I don't know if that address is also moderated, it might be, si maybe
>> it's that?
>You could be right, I've just noticed this in the "Submitting Patches"
>info page:
>>    Expect some delay when you submit your very first patch to
>> <guix-patches@gnu.org>.  You have to wait until you get an
>> acknowledgement with the assigned tracking number.  Future
>> acknowledgements should not be delayed.
>

Re: Help Sending Patch Series

[Lee Thompson]

Maxim Cournoyer <maxim.cournoyer@gmail.com> writes:

> It should be guix-patches@gnu.org, not @debbugs.gnu.org

Okay I think I've found the source of the issue, it looks like I've read
some slightly older documentation that says to send to
guix-patches@gnu.org but includes an example command to send to
guix-patches@debbugs.gnu.org.

This is the HTML version of the info page I was working against:
https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Sending-a-Patch-Series.html#Multiple-Patches-1

and this is the latest which appears to be fixed:
https://guix.gnu.org/manual/devel/en/html_node/Sending-a-Patch-Series.html#Multiple-Patches-1

I'll now try sending the cover letter to guix-patches@gnu.org, thanks!

Re: Help Sending Patch Series

[Steve George]

Hi Lee,

You aren't the first person to find this difficult, I'm pretty much guaranteed to create multiple Debbugs issues every time!

On  1 Nov, Lee Thompson wrote:
> Maxim Cournoyer <maxim.cournoyer@gmail.com> writes:
> 
> > It should be guix-patches@gnu.org, not @debbugs.gnu.org
> 
> Okay I think I've found the source of the issue, it looks like I've read
> some slightly older documentation that says to send to
> guix-patches@gnu.org but includes an example command to send to
> guix-patches@debbugs.gnu.org.
> 
> This is the HTML version of the info page I was working against:
> https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Sending-a-Patch-Series.html#Multiple-Patches-1
> 
> and this is the latest which appears to be fixed:
> https://guix.gnu.org/manual/devel/en/html_node/Sending-a-Patch-Series.html#Multiple-Patches-1
> 
> I'll now try sending the cover letter to guix-patches@gnu.org, thanks!
>
(...)

It's worth knowing what's going on. We send the first email in a series (the cover letter) to guix-patches [0]. The bug system (debbugs) will see this and it creates an issue, it notifies you with the new issue number.

Then subsequent emails (the rest of the series), go the NNN@debbugs.gnu.org. Note that you do NOT send them to guix-patches. Instead debbugs will reflect them to the mailing list for you. 

So that the series threads correctly on the mailing list the follow-on emails have to have the `--in-reply-to` header set with the header of the cover letter.

If the team was cc'd onto the cover letter then debbugs picks this up and will automatically cc them onto the subsequent patches. Because I'm paranoid and don't trust debbugs I *also* add them to the follow-on patches. There's a special Debbugs header that's used, so then you know Debbugs has definitely added them to the bug for all emails after this.

So my final steps are:

# 1. I use StackedGit, but this should work with the standard git format-patch
git format-patch --output-directory <output dir> --numbered --base=auto --thread=shallow --cover-letter --all

# 2. check if a patch should cc a particular team by doing it explicitly
# I don't like the magic Guix injects and it always breaks on my system
./pre-inst-env etc/teams.scm get-maintainer ~/workspace/guix-packages/worktrees/stg-out/0002-gnu-borgmatic-Update-to-1.8.14.patch

# 3. send the cover letter
git send-email --to=guix-patches@gnu.org --annotate --dry-run <output-dir>

# to also cc someone
#git send-email --to=guix-patches@gnu.org --cc="person@blah.com, person2@other.com" --annotate --dry-run <output-dir>

# 4. rm the cover letter so you don't send it again!
rm <outputdir/cover-letter>

# 5. get the Message-ID for the cover letter email by looking on Issues
https://issues.gnu.guix.org/NNNNN

# 6. re-export the emails TO: <debbugs> 
stg email format --output-directory <output-dir> --numbered --base=auto \
--to NNNN@debbugs.gnu.org \ 
--add-header="X-Debbugs-Cc: person1@blah.com, person2@other.com" \
--in-reply-to XXXXX \
--thread=shallow --all

# 7. Send them
git send-email --to=NNNN@debbugs.gnu.org  --no-thread --no-chain-reply-to --dry-run <export-dir>

Maybe there are better ways, but this is the least 'magic' way to do it that I know.

Steve / Futurile

[0] and CC the people on any team that should be notified