This tool is no longer maintained. A number of alternatives exist:
- b4 (lore.kernel.org)
- Patchwork's pwclient
- Patchew
You can apply a patch series with b4 like this:
$ pip install --user b4
$ b4 am --add-my-sob -o - MESSAGE_ID | git am -m
patches is a patch tracking system. It consists of two parts: a set of commands that build a database of patches from a mailing list and then a set of commands that can search that database. It supports the following features:
-
Tracking patch status by determining which patches are already committed, have newer versions posted, are RFC, etc.
-
Applying patches or pull requests with a single command.
-
Searching for patches using a rich query language.
$ python setup.py install
There are no dependencies if you are working with an existing database. To build a new database, you need python-notmuch.
To get started with the QEMU project:
$ patches fetch http://patches.qemu.org/patches.json
$ patches list
Message-id: 1357498122-1129-1-git-send-email-afaerber@suse.de
From: Andreas Färber <afaerber@suse.de>
[0/2] QOM realize, device-only
[1/2] qdev: Fold state enum into bool realized
[2/2] qdev: Prepare "realized" property
Message-id: 1357497091-30013-1-git-send-email-afaerber@suse.de
From: Andreas Färber <afaerber@suse.de>
[0/2] PowerPCCPU subclasses
[1/2] target-ppc: Slim conversion of model definitions to QOM subcl..
[2/2] target-ppc: Error out for -cpu host on unknown PVR
...
$ patches apply id:1357498122-1129-1-git-send-email-afaerber@suse.de
Applying: qdev: Fold state enum into bool realized
Applying: qdev: Prepare "realized" property
The fetch
command should be run whenever you want to refresh the patch
database; it will download any new patches that have arrived since the
last time you did a fetch.
If you only use patches with one project you can set the default fetch
URL by creating a ~/.patchesrc
file with the following contents:
[fetch]
# Default URL to use if 'patches fetch' is not given an argument:
url=http://patches.qemu.org/patches.json
The query language supported by patches supports boolean operators: "and" and "or", and unary operators: "not", "any", and "all". Parentheses and string quotation are also supported. Terms are matched using substring search within the subject.
The "any" and "all" operators change whether the search term applies to at least one of the messages in a thread or all messages in a thread.
Special terms have a prefix and can be used to search against other parameters than subject text. The following prefixes are supported:
status:broken
show broken series (malformed or missing patches)status:obsolete
show series that have newer versions availablestatus:pull-request
show pull requestsstatus:rfc
show RFC postingsstatus:committed
show committed seriesstatus:applied
show series with a "Thanks, applied" replystatus:unapplied
short hand fornot (status:broken or status:obsolete or status:pull-request or status:rfc or status:committed or status:applied)
status:reviewed
show series where every patch has at least one Reviewed-byto:ADDRESS
show series whereADDRESS
is on the receipent listfrom:ADDRESS
show series whereADDRESS
is the senderreviewed-by:ADDRESS
show series if a patch has a Reviewed-by byADDRESS
tested-by:ADDRESS
show series if a patch has a Tested-by byADDRESS
nacked-by:ADDRESS
show series if a patch has a Nacked-by byADDRESS
acked-by:ADDRESS
show series if a patch has a Acked-by byADDRESS
Show unapplied patches where 'Anthony Liguori' was CC'd:
$ patches list 'to:"Anthony Liguori" status:unapplied'
Note that the whole query is wrapped in single quotes. This is necessary to avoid having conflicts between shell quote interpretation and patches.
Limit the search to only patches that haven't been reviewed yet:
$ patches list 'to:"Anthony Liguori" status:unapplied not status:reviewed'
patches is not meant to be a tool to review patches directly. Instead, it is designed to integrate with mail clients for displaying patches.
The list
command can be passed --format=notmuch
which will cause
patches to output a notmuch search query instead of a stylized output.
Given a message-id of any patch within a series, patches can apply a patch series or pull request. This is meant to allow integration with mail clients that can call out to a external program to process a mail.
patches apply
takes a query string, so you usually want to provide a search
string with an id:
function.
To use the notify
command, you need to add the following stanzas to your
~/.patchesrc
file:
[notify]
default_sender=Your Name <your@email.com>
smtp_server=your.smtp.server.com
events=pulled;committed
This will send out notifications when patches detects that you have committed a patch or pulled a pull request.
There are two very important options when using the notify command. The
--dry-run
option will show you the mail you are about to send without
taking any real action. You should always run with --dry-run
before
sending notifies!
Since patches is looking at a 30 day history, the first time you run it, it will want to send a very large number of notifications.
To setup the database and avoid these notifications, you should run with the
--fake
option for the first time. This will pretend that the emails are
being sent without actually sending them.