From: Borislav Petkov
Subject: [PATCH] Documentation/submitting-patches: Extend commit message layout
description
Add more blurb about the level of detail that should be contained in a
patch's commit message. Extend and make more explicit what text should
be added under the --- line. Extend examples and split into more easily
palatable paragraphs.
This has been partially carved out from a tip subsystem handbook
patchset by Thomas Gleixner:
https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20181107171010.421878...@linutronix.de
and incorporates follow-on comments.
Signed-off-by: Borislav Petkov
---
/me sends the next generic topic blurb.
Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst | 89
1 file changed, 56 insertions(+), 33 deletions(-)
diff --git a/Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst
b/Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst
index 5ca072f9ecb7..403784aca1f2 100644
--- a/Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst
+++ b/Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst
@@ -623,16 +623,19 @@ not considered part of the summary phrase, but describe
how the patch
should be treated. Common tags might include a version descriptor if
the multiple versions of the patch have been sent out in response to
comments (i.e., "v1, v2, v3"), or "RFC" to indicate a request for
-comments. If there are four patches in a patch series the individual
-patches may be numbered like this: 1/4, 2/4, 3/4, 4/4. This assures
-that developers understand the order in which the patches should be
-applied and that they have reviewed or applied all of the patches in
-the patch series.
+comments.
+
+If there are four patches in a patch series the individual patches may
+be numbered like this: 1/4, 2/4, 3/4, 4/4. This assures that developers
+understand the order in which the patches should be applied and that
+they have reviewed or applied all of the patches in the patch series.
A couple of example Subjects::
Subject: [PATCH 2/5] ext2: improve scalability of bitmap searching
Subject: [PATCH v2 01/27] x86: fix eflags tracking
+Subject: [PATCH v2] sub/sys: Condensed patch summary
+Subject: [PATCH v2 M/N] sub/sys: Condensed patch summary
The ``from`` line must be the very first line in the message body,
and has the form:
@@ -645,34 +648,54 @@ then the ``From:`` line from the email header will be
used to determine
the patch author in the changelog.
The explanation body will be committed to the permanent source
-changelog, so should make sense to a competent reader who has long
-since forgotten the immediate details of the discussion that might
-have led to this patch. Including symptoms of the failure which the
-patch addresses (kernel log messages, oops messages, etc.) is
-especially useful for people who might be searching the commit logs
-looking for the applicable patch. If a patch fixes a compile failure,
-it may not be necessary to include _all_ of the compile failures; just
-enough that it is likely that someone searching for the patch can find
-it. As in the ``summary phrase``, it is important to be both succinct as
-well as descriptive.
-
-The ``---`` marker line serves the essential purpose of marking for patch
-handling tools where the changelog message ends.
-
-One good use for the additional comments after the ``---`` marker is for
-a ``diffstat``, to show what files have changed, and the number of
-inserted and deleted lines per file. A ``diffstat`` is especially useful
-on bigger patches. Other comments relevant only to the moment or the
-maintainer, not suitable for the permanent changelog, should also go
-here. A good example of such comments might be ``patch changelogs``
-which describe what has changed between the v1 and v2 version of the
-patch.
-
-If you are going to include a ``diffstat`` after the ``---`` marker, please
-use ``diffstat`` options ``-p 1 -w 70`` so that filenames are listed from
-the top of the kernel source tree and don't use too much horizontal
-space (easily fit in 80 columns, maybe with some indentation). (``git``
-generates appropriate diffstats by default.)
+changelog, so should make sense to a competent reader who has long since
+forgotten the immediate details of the discussion that might have led to
+this patch. Including symptoms of the failure which the patch addresses
+(kernel log messages, oops messages, etc.) are especially useful for
+people who might be searching the commit logs looking for the applicable
+patch. The text should be written in such detail so that when read
+weeks, months or even years later, it can give the reader the needed
+details to grasp the reasoning for **why** the patch was created.
+
+If a patch fixes a compile failure, it may not be necessary to include
+_all_ of the compile failures; just enough that it is likely that
+someone searching for the patch can find it. As in the ``summary
+phrase``, it is important to be both succinct as well as descriptive.
+
+The ``---`` marker line
