Inform Users about help.autocorrect

[Brian-Bartels]

In a poll of 200 Microsoft employees, 162/200 didn't know about help.autocorrect. It's my favorite git feature and I believe that it could be more advertised to save developers inner loop pain.

[gitgitgadget]

Welcome to GitGitGadget

Hi @Brian-Bartels, and welcome to GitGitGadget, the GitHub App to send patch series to the Git mailing list from GitHub Pull Requests.

Please make sure that your Pull Request has a good description, as it will be used as cover letter.

Also, it is a good idea to review the commit messages one last time, as the Git project expects them in a quite specific form:

• the lines should not exceed 76 columns,
• the first line should be like a header and typically start with a prefix like "tests:" or "revisions:" to state which subsystem the change is about, and
• the commit messages' body should be describing the "why?" of the change.
• Finally, the commit messages should end in a Signed-off-by: line matching the commits' author.

It is in general a good idea to await the automated test ("Checks") in this Pull Request before contributing the patches, e.g. to avoid trivial issues such as unportable code.

Contributing the patches

Before you can contribute the patches, your GitHub username needs to be added to the list of permitted users. Any already-permitted user can do that, by adding a comment to your PR of the form /allow. A good way to find other contributors is to locate recent pull requests where someone has been /allowed:

• Search: is:pr is:open "/allow"

Both the person who commented /allow and the PR author are able to /allow you.

An alternative is the channel #git-devel on the Libera Chat IRC network:

<newcontributor> I've just created my first PR, could someone please /allow me? https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git/pull/12345
<veteran> newcontributor: it is done
<newcontributor> thanks!

Once on the list of permitted usernames, you can contribute the patches to the Git mailing list by adding a PR comment /submit.

If you want to see what email(s) would be sent for a /submit request, add a PR comment /preview to have the email(s) sent to you. You must have a public GitHub email address for this.

After you submit, GitGitGadget will respond with another comment that contains the link to the cover letter mail in the Git mailing list archive. Please make sure to monitor the discussion in that thread and to address comments and suggestions (while the comments and suggestions will be mirrored into the PR by GitGitGadget, you will still want to reply via mail).

If you do not want to subscribe to the Git mailing list just to be able to respond to a mail, you can download the mbox from the Git mailing list archive (click the (raw) link), then import it into your mail program. If you use GMail, you can do this via:

curl -g --user "<EMailAddress>:<Password>" \
    --url "imaps://imap.gmail.com/INBOX" -T /path/to/raw.txt

To iterate on your change, i.e. send a revised patch or patch series, you will first want to (force-)push to the same branch. You probably also want to modify your Pull Request description (or title). It is a good idea to summarize the revision by adding something like this to the cover letter (read: by editing the first comment on the PR, i.e. the PR description):

Changes since v1:
- Fixed a typo in the commit message (found by ...)
- Added a code comment to ... as suggested by ...
...

To send a new iteration, just add another PR comment with the contents: /submit.

Need help?

New contributors who want advice are encouraged to join git-mentoring@googlegroups.com, where volunteers who regularly contribute to Git are willing to answer newbie questions, give advice, or otherwise provide mentoring to interested contributors. You must join in order to post or view messages, but anyone can join.

You may also be able to find help in real time in the developer IRC channel, #git-devel on Libera Chat. Remember that IRC does not support offline messaging, so if you send someone a private message and log out, they cannot respond to you. The scrollback of #git-devel is archived, though.

[gitgitgadget]

There is an issue in commit 83b72f1:
Commit checks stopped - the message is too short

[gitgitgadget]

There is an issue in commit 83b72f1:
Commit checks stopped - the message is too short

[gitgitgadget]

There are issues in commit 9a3d95b:
First line of commit message is too long (> 76 columns): Inform users that help.autocorrect exists to increase user adoption of the feature
Commit not signed off

[Brian-Bartels]

@phillipwood , @j6t I need allow permissions, Can you help :) thanks

[gitgitgadget]

There is an issue in commit 83b72f1:
Commit checks stopped - the message is too short

[gitgitgadget]

There are issues in commit 9a3d95b:
First line of commit message is too long (> 76 columns): Inform users that help.autocorrect exists to increase user adoption of the feature
Commit not signed off

[gitgitgadget]

There are issues in commit a038de3:
Prefixed commit message must be in lower case: Logs: Inform Users about help.autocorrect
Commit not signed off

[gitgitgadget]

There is an issue in commit 83b72f1:
Commit checks stopped - the message is too short

[gitgitgadget]

There are issues in commit 9a3d95b:
First line of commit message is too long (> 76 columns): Inform users that help.autocorrect exists to increase user adoption of the feature
Commit not signed off

[gitgitgadget]

There are issues in commit a038de3:
Prefixed commit message must be in lower case: Logs: Inform Users about help.autocorrect
Commit not signed off

[gitgitgadget]

There are issues in commit fc4aea1:
Prefixed commit message must be in lower case: logs: Inform Users about help.autocorrect
Commit not signed off

[Brian-Bartels]

Also what is wrong with my commit messages?

[dscho]

Also what is wrong with my commit messages?

The requirements are listed here: https://git-scm.com/docs/SubmittingPatches#describe-changes. In the current context:

• The commit message should continue in lower case after the colon in the first line, i.e. "logs: inform [...]" instead of "logs: Inform [...]".
• The maximum line length is 76 columns. Your commit message has a line that is 109 columns long. You would need to add a line break either before or after the word "short".
• The commit needs to be signed off, i.e. there should be a "Signed-off-by: [your name and email]" certifying that you are legally allowed to contribute this under the GPL to the Git project.

In general, it is a good idea to have a look around Git's commits to see how the expected format looks like. You will see that the format is more about explaining the rationale (or, motivation) for the patch, then go into the context that is not readily visible from the patch, and then maybe a discussion of alternative approaches and why they haven't been chosen.

See 1235875 for a good example.

Also note that the reviewers will frown upon four commits change the same line four times. The Git project highly discourages patch series that introduce a problem merely to fix it within the same patch series. You probably want to consider squashing those changes into a single one before going any further.

[Brian-Bartels]

@dscho Thanks for the pointers. I know 4 commits is bad style, I was mostly just trying to figure out the commit rules by trial and error. I'll definitely squash, thanks :)

[dscho]

@Brian-Bartels still interested in this PR?

[dscho]

/allow

[gitgitgadget]

User Brian-Bartels is now allowed to use GitGitGadget.

[Brian-Bartels]

@dscho honestly no. I've contributed to other OS projects in the past. None have been as closed off and confusing as Git