[PATCH 15/15] docs: Add a user-oriented explanation of series parsing

Damien Lespiau damien.lespiau at intel.com
Fri Oct 9 21:40:02 AEDT 2015


It's really necessary to start documenting what Patchwork knows about
when parsing emails.

This time, it's about series and new revision of series.

Signed-off-by: Damien Lespiau <damien.lespiau at intel.com>
---
 docs/index.rst  |   1 +
 docs/manual.rst | 143 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 144 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 docs/manual.rst

diff --git a/docs/index.rst b/docs/index.rst
index a38bf36..7322a9a 100644
--- a/docs/index.rst
+++ b/docs/index.rst
@@ -13,5 +13,6 @@ Contents:
 
    intro
    installation
+   manual
    development
 
diff --git a/docs/manual.rst b/docs/manual.rst
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f29f5a8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/manual.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,143 @@
+User Manual
+===========
+
+Initial Submission
+------------------
+
+Patches are normally submitted with ``git send-email`` to a mailing
+list. For instance, if we branched from ``origin/master``, have 3
+patches to submit, we can use:
+
+::
+
+    $ git send-email --to=<mailing-list> --cover-letter origin/master
+
+This command will produce the following email thread (providing you have
+the ``chainreplyto`` configuration option set to ``false``):
+
+::
+
+    + [PATCH 0/3] Cover Letter Subject
+    +--> [PATCH 1/3] Patch 1
+    +--> [PATCH 2/3] Patch 2
+    +--> [PATCH 3/3] Patch 3
+
+Patchwork receives those mails and construct Series and Patches objects
+to present a high level view of the mailing-list activity and a way to
+track what happens to that submission.
+
+It's a good idea to include a cover-letter to introduce the work.
+Patchwork will also pick up that cover letter and name the series with
+the subject of that email.
+
+When sending only one patch, it's a bit much to send a cover-letter
+along with it as the commit message should provide enough context. In
+that case, Patchwork will use the subject of the patch as the series
+title.
+
+New Versions
+------------
+
+Sometimes, maybe even more often than hoped, one needs to resend a few
+patches or even entire series to address review comments.
+
+Patchwork supports:
+
+  - Re-sending a single patch as a reply to the reviewer email. This is
+    usually only used when a few patches have to be resent.
+
+  - Re-sending a full series as a new thread.
+
+A Series object in patchwork tracks all the changes on top of the
+initial submission.
+
+New Patch
+~~~~~~~~~
+
+To send a v2 of a patch part of a bigger series, one would do something
+similar to:
+
+::
+
+    $ git send-email --to=<mailing-list> --cc=<reviewer> \
+                     --in-reply-to=<reviewer-mail-message-id> \
+                     --reroll-count 2 -1 HEAD~2
+
+And, continuing the previous example, this would result in the following
+email thread:
+
+::
+
+    + [PATCH 0/3] Cover Letter Subject
+    +--> [PATCH 1/3] Patch 1
+    +--> [PATCH 2/3] Patch 2
+    |  +--> Re: [PATCH 2/3] Patch 2               (reviewer comments)
+    |     +--> [PATCH v2 2/3] Patch 2             (v2 of patch 2/3)
+    +--> [PATCH 3/3] Patch 3
+
+Patch work will create a new *revision* of the series, updating patch
+#2 to the new version of that patch.
+
+New Series
+~~~~~~~~~~
+
+When something is really wrong or when, to address the review, most
+patches of a series need to be revised, re-sending individual emails can
+be both annoying for the patch author but also hard to follow from the
+reviewer side. It's then better to re-send a full new thread and forget
+the previous one.
+
+Patchwork will get that and create a new revision of the initial series
+with all patches updated to the latest and greatest.
+
+::
+
+    + [PATCH 0/3] Cover Letter Subject
+    +--> [PATCH 1/3] Patch 1
+    +--> [PATCH 2/3] Patch 2
+    +--> [PATCH 3/3] Patch 3
+
+    + [PATCH v2 0/3] Cover Letter Subject
+    +--> [PATCH v2 1/3] Patch 1                   (v2 of patch 1/3)
+    +--> [PATCH v2 2/3] Patch 2                   (v2 of patch 2/3)
+    +--> [PATCH v2 3/3] Patch 3                   (v2 of patch 3/3)
+
+Patchwork uses the cover letter subject to detect that intent. So one
+doesn't need to use the ``reroll-count`` like above, the following
+would work as well:
+
+::
+
+    + [PATCH 0/3] Cover Letter Subject
+    +--> [PATCH 1/3] Patch 1
+    +--> [PATCH 2/3] Patch 2
+    +--> [PATCH 3/3] Patch 3
+
+    + [PATCH 0/3] Cover Letter Subject (v2)
+    +--> [PATCH 1/3] Patch 1                     (v2 of patch 1/3)
+    +--> [PATCH 2/3] Patch 2                     (v2 of patch 2/3)
+    +--> [PATCH 3/3] Patch 3                     (v2 of patch 3/3)
+
+Of course, we've now entered a dangerous territory. Trying to parse some
+human-generated text. The regular expression used accepts several ways
+of saying that the series is a new version of a previous one. If your
+favourite way isn't among what's supported, consider contributing (like
+filing an issue)!
+
+Considering an initial series with ``Awesome feature`` as the cover
+letter subject, Patchwork will considering series with the following
+cover letter subjects as new revisions:
+
+  +---------------------------------+----------------------------+
+  |       Regular Expression        |        Cover Letter        |
+  +---------------------------------+----------------------------+
+  |                                 | - Awesome feature          |
+  |                                 | - awesome feature          |
+  +---------------------------------+----------------------------+
+  | ``[, \(]*(v|take)[\) 0-9]+$')`` | - Awesome feature v2       |
+  |                                 | - awesome feature V2       |
+  |                                 | - Awesome feature, v3      |
+  |                                 | - Awesome feature (v4)     |
+  |                                 | - Awesome feature (take 5) |
+  |                                 | - Awesome feature, take 6  |
+  +---------------------------------+----------------------------+
-- 
2.1.0



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