[PATCH] Document patch subject line better

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

 



Improve explanation of the Subject line fields in
Documentation/SubmittingPatches Canonical Patch Format.

Signed-off-by: Paul Jackson <[email protected]>

Index: 2.6.14-rc2-mm2/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
===================================================================
--- 2.6.14-rc2-mm2.orig/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
+++ 2.6.14-rc2-mm2/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
@@ -305,7 +305,7 @@ point out some special detail about the 
 
 The canonical patch subject line is:
 
-    Subject: [PATCH 001/123] [<area>:] <explanation>
+    Subject: [PATCH 001/123] subsystem: summary phrase
 
 The canonical patch message body contains the following:
 
@@ -330,9 +330,25 @@ alphabetically by subject line - pretty 
 support that - since because the sequence number is zero-padded,
 the numerical and alphabetic sort is the same.
 
-See further details on how to phrase the "<explanation>" in the
-"Subject:" line in Andrew Morton's "The perfect patch", referenced
-below.
+The "subsystem" in the email's Subject should identify which
+area or subsystem of the kernel is being patched.
+
+The "summary phrase" in the email's Subject should concisely
+describe the patch which that email contains.  The "summary
+phrase" should not be a filename.  Do not use the same "summary
+phrase" for every patch in a whole patch series.
+
+Bear in mind that the "summary phrase" of your email becomes
+a globally-unique identifier for that patch.  It propagates
+all the way into the git changelog.  The "summary phrase" may
+later be used in developer discussions which refer to the patch.
+People will want to google for the "summary phrase" to read
+discussion regarding that patch.
+
+A couple of example Subjects:
+
+    Subject: [patch 2/5] ext2: improve scalability of bitmap searching
+    Subject: [PATCHv2 001/207] x86: fix eflags tracking
 
 The "from" line must be the very first line in the message body,
 and has the form:

-- 
                          I won't rest till it's the best ...
                          Programmer, Linux Scalability
                          Paul Jackson <[email protected]> 1.650.933.1373
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [email protected]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

[Index of Archives]     [Kernel Newbies]     [Netfilter]     [Bugtraq]     [Photo]     [Stuff]     [Gimp]     [Yosemite News]     [MIPS Linux]     [ARM Linux]     [Linux Security]     [Linux RAID]     [Video 4 Linux]     [Linux for the blind]     [Linux Resources]
  Powered by Linux