Workflow: Tracking branch
=========================
+In the 'Development branch' workflow described above, we didn't have
+to worry about other people; we're working on our branch, they are
+presumably working on theirs, and when the time comes and we're ready
+to publish our branch, we'll probably end up merging our branch with
+those other peoples'. That's how Git is designed to work.
-Rebasing a patch series
------------------------
+Or rather, one of the ways Git is designed to work. An alternative,
+popular in e.g. the Linux kernel community (for which Git was
+originally created), is that contributors send their patches by e-mail
+to a mailing list. Others read the patches, try them out, and provide
+feedback; often, the patch author is asked to send a new and improved
+version of the patches. Once the project maintainer is satisfied that
+the patches are good, she'll 'apply' them to a branch and publish it.
-TODO:: rebase, ...
+StGit is ideally suited for the process of creating patches, mailing
+them out for review, revising them, mailing them off again, and
+eventually getting them accepted.
Getting patches upstream
------------------------
-TODO:: export, mail, ...
+We've already covered how to clone a Git repository and start writing
+patches. As for the next step, there are two commands you might use to
+get patches out of StGit: stglink:mail[] and stglink:export[].
+stglink:export[] will export your patches to a filesystem directory as
+one text file per patch, which can be useful if you are going to send
+the patches by something other than e-mail. Most of the time, though,
+stglink:mail[] is what you want.
+
+NOTE: Git comes with tools for sending commits via e-mail. Since StGit
+patches are Git commits, you can use the Git tools if you like them
+better for some reason.
+
+NOTE: For exporting single patches -- as opposed to a whole bunch of
+them -- you could also use stglink:show[] or stglink:diff[].
+
+Mailing a patch is as easy as this:
+
+ $ stg mail --to recipient@example.com <patches>
+
+You can list one or more patches, or ranges of patches. Each patch
+will be sent as a separate mail, with the first line of the commit
+message as subject line. Try mailing patches to yourself to see what
+the result looks like.
+
+NOTE: stglink:mail[] uses +sendmail+ on your computer to send the
+mails. If you don't have +sendmail+ properly set up, you can instruct
+it to use any SMTP server with the +$$--smtp-server$$+ flag.
+
+There are many command-line options to control exactly how mails are
+sent, as well as a message template you can modify if you want. The
+man page has all the details; I'll just mention two more here.
+
++$$--edit-cover$$+ will open an editor and let you write an
+introductory message; all the patch mails will then be sent as replies
+to this 'cover message'. This is usually a good idea if you send more
+than one patch, so that reviewers can get a quick overview of the
+patches you sent.
+
++$$--edit-patches$$+ will let you edit each patch before it is sent.
+You can change anything, but note that you are only editing the
+outgoing mail, not the patch itself; if you want to make changes to
+the patch, you probably want to use the regular StGit commands to do
+so. What this 'is' useful for, though, is to add notes for the patch
+recipients:
+
+----------------------------------------------------------------------
+From: Audrey U. Thor <author@example.com>
+Subject: [PATCH] First line of the commit message
+
+The rest of the commit message
+
+---
+
+Everything after the line with the three dashes and before the diff is
+just a comment, and not part of the commit message. If there's
+anything you want the patch recipients to see, but that shouldn't be
+recorded in the history if the patch is accepted, write it here.
+
+ stgit/main.py | 1 +
+ 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
+
+
+diff --git a/stgit/main.py b/stgit/main.py
+index e324179..6398958 100644
+--- a/stgit/main.py
++++ b/stgit/main.py
+@@ -171,6 +171,7 @@ def _main():
+ sys.exit(ret or utils.STGIT_SUCCESS)
+
+ def main():
++ print 'My first patch!'
+ try:
+ _main()
+ finally:
+----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+Rebasing a patch series
+-----------------------
+
+TODO:: rebase, ...
Importing patches
~mdw / stgit / commitdiff