Re: [PATCH] Documenting patch tags yet one more time

From: Stefan Richter
Date: Sat Feb 09 2008 - 03:38:58 EST


Paul Jackson would like to:
> explain more clearly that PATCH's
> should start off, right from the top or after the initial From: line if
> present, with:
>
> - The body of the explanation, which will be copied to the
> permanent changelog to describe this patch.
>
> rather than opening with ephemeral reactions to the discussion of the
> moment which will make little "sense to a competent reader who has long
> since forgotten the immediate details of the discussion that might have
> led to this patch."
>
> As best my legalistic mind understands the patch format, such ephemeral
> reactions should go after the "---" marker line, in the same section as
> the diffstat would be placed.
>
> Or perhaps the patch format should be changed in this regard, since it
> is cumbersome and unnatural to embed the ephemeral opening comments
> half way down the patch, rather than opening with them.

In common practice, the changelog does not start before the _last_ From:
line (rather than the initial From: line).

ephemera
From: author
changelog
tags
changelog, continued
tags
---
ephemera, diffstat
diff
ephemera

There may be a Date: somewhere before the changelog as well. The first
line of the changelog is the one to appear in shortlogs. It may be
preceded by Subject:.
--
Stefan Richter
-=====-==--- --=- -=--=
http://arcgraph.de/sr/
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/