312 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
312 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
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.
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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. 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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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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