docs/submittingpatches.html: add #backports section
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5 <title>Submitting patches</title>
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10 <div class="header">
11 <h1>The Mesa 3D Graphics Library</h1>
12 </div>
13
14 <iframe src="contents.html"></iframe>
15 <div class="content">
16
17 <h1>Submitting patches</h1>
18
19
20 <ul>
21 <li><a href="#guidelines">Basic guidelines</a>
22 <li><a href="#formatting">Patch formatting</a>
23 <li><a href="#testing">Testing Patches</a>
24 <li><a href="#mailing">Mailing Patches</a>
25 <li><a href="#reviewing">Reviewing Patches</a>
26 <li><a href="#nominations">Nominating a commit for a stable branch</a>
27 <li><a href="#criteria">Criteria for accepting patches to the stable branch</a>
28 <li><a href="#backports">Sending backports for the stable branch</a>
29 <li><a href="#gittips">Git tips</a>
30 </ul>
31
32 <h2 id="guidelines">Basic guidelines</h2>
33
34 <ul>
35 <li>Patches should not mix code changes with code formatting changes (except,
36 perhaps, in very trivial cases.)
37 <li>Code patches should follow Mesa
38 <a href="codingstyle.html" target="_parent">coding conventions</a>.
39 <li>Whenever possible, patches should only effect individual Mesa/Gallium
40 components.
41 <li>Patches should never introduce build breaks and should be bisectable (see
42 <code>git bisect</code>.)
43 <li>Patches should be properly <a href="#formatting">formatted</a>.
44 <li>Patches should be sufficiently <a href="#testing">tested</a> before submitting.
45 <li>Patches should be submitted to <a href="#mailing">mesa-dev</a>
46 for <a href="#reviewing">review</a> using <code>git send-email</code>.
47
48 </ul>
49
50 <h2 id="formatting">Patch formatting</h2>
51
52 <ul>
53 <li>Lines should be limited to 75 characters or less so that git logs
54 displayed in 80-column terminals avoid line wrapping. Note that git
55 log uses 4 spaces of indentation (4 + 75 &lt; 80).
56 <li>The first line should be a short, concise summary of the change prefixed
57 with a module name. Examples:
58 <pre>
59 mesa: Add support for querying GL_VERTEX_ATTRIB_ARRAY_LONG
60
61 gallium: add PIPE_CAP_DEVICE_RESET_STATUS_QUERY
62
63 i965: Fix missing type in local variable declaration.
64 </pre>
65 <li>Subsequent patch comments should describe the change in more detail,
66 if needed. For example:
67 <pre>
68 i965: Remove end-of-thread SEND alignment code.
69
70 This was present in Eric's initial implementation of the compaction code
71 for Sandybridge (commit 077d01b6). There is no documentation saying this
72 is necessary, and removing it causes no regressions in piglit on any
73 platform.
74 </pre>
75 <li>A "Signed-off-by:" line is not required, but not discouraged either.
76 <li>If a patch addresses a bugzilla issue, that should be noted in the
77 patch comment. For example:
78 <pre>
79 Bugzilla: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=89689
80 </pre>
81 <li>If there have been several revisions to a patch during the review
82 process, they should be noted such as in this example:
83 <pre>
84 st/mesa: add ARB_texture_stencil8 support (v4)
85
86 if we support stencil texturing, enable texture_stencil8
87 there is no requirement to support native S8 for this,
88 the texture can be converted to x24s8 fine.
89
90 v2: fold fixes from Marek in:
91 a) put S8 last in the list
92 b) fix renderable to always test for d/s renderable
93 fixup the texture case to use a stencil only format
94 for picking the format for the texture view.
95 v3: hit fallback for getteximage
96 v4: put s8 back in front, it shouldn't get picked now (Ilia)
97 </pre>
98 <li>If someone tested your patch, document it with a line like this:
99 <pre>
100 Tested-by: Joe Hacker &lt;jhacker@foo.com&gt;
101 </pre>
102 <li>If the patch was reviewed (usually the case) or acked by someone,
103 that should be documented with:
104 <pre>
105 Reviewed-by: Joe Hacker &lt;jhacker@foo.com&gt;
106 Acked-by: Joe Hacker &lt;jhacker@foo.com&gt;
107 </pre>
108 <li>If sending later revision of a patch, add all the tags - ack, r-b,
109 Cc: mesa-stable and/or other. This provides reviewers with quick feedback if the
110 patch has already been reviewed.
111 <li>In order for your patch to reach the prospective reviewer easier/faster,
112 use the script scripts/get_reviewer.pl to get a list of individuals and include
113 them in the CC list.
114 <br>
115 Please use common sense and do <strong>not</strong> blindly add everyone.
116 <br>
117 <pre>
118 $ scripts/get_reviewer.pl --help # to get the the help screen
119 $ scripts/get_reviewer.pl -f src/egl/drivers/dri2/platform_android.c
120 Rob Herring <robh@kernel.org> (reviewer:ANDROID EGL SUPPORT,added_lines:188/700=27%,removed_lines:58/283=20%)
121 Tomasz Figa <tfiga@chromium.org> (reviewer:ANDROID EGL SUPPORT,authored:12/41=29%,added_lines:308/700=44%,removed_lines:115/283=41%)
122 Emil Velikov <emil.l.velikov@gmail.com> (authored:13/41=32%,removed_lines:76/283=27%)
123 </pre>
124 </ul>
125
126
127
128 <h2 id="testing">Testing Patches</h2>
129
130 <p>
131 It should go without saying that patches must be tested. In general,
132 do whatever testing is prudent.
133 </p>
134
135 <p>
136 You should always run the Mesa test suite before submitting patches.
137 The test suite can be run using the 'make check' command. All tests
138 must pass before patches will be accepted, this may mean you have
139 to update the tests themselves.
140 </p>
141
142 <p>
143 Whenever possible and applicable, test the patch with
144 <a href="https://piglit.freedesktop.org">Piglit</a> and/or
145 <a href="https://android.googlesource.com/platform/external/deqp/">dEQP</a>
146 to check for regressions.
147 </p>
148
149
150 <h2 id="mailing">Mailing Patches</h2>
151
152 <p>
153 Patches should be sent to the mesa-dev mailing list for review:
154 <a href="https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/mesa-dev">
155 mesa-dev@lists.freedesktop.org</a>.
156 When submitting a patch make sure to use
157 <a href="https://git-scm.com/docs/git-send-email">git send-email</a>
158 rather than attaching patches to emails. Sending patches as
159 attachments prevents people from being able to provide in-line review
160 comments.
161 </p>
162
163 <p>
164 When submitting follow-up patches you can use --in-reply-to to make v2, v3,
165 etc patches show up as replies to the originals. This usually works well
166 when you're sending out updates to individual patches (as opposed to
167 re-sending the whole series). Using --in-reply-to makes
168 it harder for reviewers to accidentally review old patches.
169 </p>
170
171 <p>
172 When submitting follow-up patches you should also login to
173 <a href="https://patchwork.freedesktop.org">patchwork</a> and change the
174 state of your old patches to Superseded.
175 </p>
176
177 <h2 id="reviewing">Reviewing Patches</h2>
178
179 <p>
180 When you've reviewed a patch on the mailing list, please be unambiguous
181 about your review. That is, state either
182 </p>
183 <pre>
184 Reviewed-by: Joe Hacker &lt;jhacker@foo.com&gt;
185 </pre>
186 or
187 <pre>
188 Acked-by: Joe Hacker &lt;jhacker@foo.com&gt;
189 </pre>
190 <p>
191 Rather than saying just "LGTM" or "Seems OK".
192 </p>
193
194 <p>
195 If small changes are suggested, it's OK to say something like:
196 </p>
197 <pre>
198 With the above fixes, Reviewed-by: Joe Hacker &lt;jhacker@foo.com&gt;
199 </pre>
200 <p>
201 which tells the patch author that the patch can be committed, as long
202 as the issues are resolved first.
203 </p>
204
205
206 <h2 id="nominations">Nominating a commit for a stable branch</h2>
207
208 <p>
209 There are three ways to nominate a patch for inclusion in the stable branch and
210 release.
211 </p>
212 <ul>
213 <li> By adding the Cc: mesa-stable@ tag as described below.
214 <li> Sending the commit ID (as seen in master branch) to the mesa-stable@ mailing list.
215 <li> Forwarding the patch from the mesa-dev@ mailing list.
216 </li>
217 </ul>
218 <p>
219 Note: resending patch identical to one on mesa-dev@ or one that differs only
220 by the extra mesa-stable@ tag is <strong>not</strong> recommended.
221 </p>
222
223
224 <h3 id="thetag">The stable tag</h3>
225
226 <p>
227 If you want a commit to be applied to a stable branch,
228 you should add an appropriate note to the commit message.
229 </p>
230
231 <p>
232 Here are some examples of such a note:
233 </p>
234 <ul>
235 <li>CC: &lt;mesa-stable@lists.freedesktop.org&gt;</li>
236 <li>CC: "9.2 10.0" &lt;mesa-stable@lists.freedesktop.org&gt;</li>
237 <li>CC: "10.0" &lt;mesa-stable@lists.freedesktop.org&gt;</li>
238 </ul>
239
240 Simply adding the CC to the mesa-stable list address is adequate to nominate
241 the commit for the most-recently-created stable branch. It is only necessary
242 to specify a specific branch name, (such as "9.2 10.0" or "10.0" in the
243 examples above), if you want to nominate the commit for an older stable
244 branch. And, as in these examples, you can nominate the commit for the older
245 branch in addition to the more recent branch, or nominate the commit
246 exclusively for the older branch.
247
248 This "CC" syntax for patch nomination will cause patches to automatically be
249 copied to the mesa-stable@ mailing list when you use "git send-email" to send
250 patches to the mesa-dev@ mailing list. If you prefer using --suppress-cc that
251 won't have any negative effect on the patch nomination.
252
253 <p>
254 Note: by removing the tag [as the commit is pushed] the patch is
255 <strong>explicitly</strong> rejected from inclusion in the stable branch(es).
256 <br>
257 Thus, drop the line <strong>only</strong> if you want to cancel the nomination.
258 </p>
259
260 <h2 id="criteria">Criteria for accepting patches to the stable branch</h2>
261
262 Mesa has a designated release manager for each stable branch, and the release
263 manager is the only developer that should be pushing changes to these branches.
264 Everyone else should nominate patches using the mechanism described above.
265
266 The following rules define which patches are accepted and which are not. The
267 stable-release manager is also given broad discretion in rejecting patches
268 that have been nominated.
269
270 <ul>
271 <li>Patch must conform with the <a href="#guidelines">Basic guidelines</a></li>
272
273 <li>Patch must have landed in master first. In case where the original
274 patch is too large and/or otherwise contradicts with the rules set within, a
275 backport is appropriate.</li>
276
277 <li>It must not introduce a regression - be that build or runtime wise.
278
279 Note: If the regression is due to faulty piglit/dEQP/CTS/other test the
280 latter must be fixed first. A reference to the offending test(s) and
281 respective fix(es) should be provided in the nominated patch.</li>
282
283 <li>Patch cannot be larger than 100 lines.</li>
284
285 <li>Patches that move code around with no functional change should be
286 rejected.</li>
287
288 <li>Patch must be a bug fix and not a new feature.
289
290 Note: An exception to this rule, are hardware-enabling "features". For
291 example, <a href="#backports">backports</a> of new code to support a
292 newly-developed hardware product can be accepted if they can be reasonably
293 determined not to have effects on other hardware.</li>
294
295 <li>Patch must be reviewed, For example, the commit message has Reviewed-by,
296 Signed-off-by, or Tested-by tags from someone but the author.</li>
297
298 <li>Performance patches are considered only if they provide information
299 about the hardware, program in question and observed improvement. Use numbers
300 to represent your measurements.</li>
301 </ul>
302
303 If the patch complies with the rules it will be
304 <a href="releasing.html#pickntest">cherry-picked</a>. Alternatively the release
305 manager will reply to the patch in question stating why the patch has been
306 rejected or would request a backport.
307
308 A summary of all the picked/rejected patches will be presented in the
309 <a href="releasing.html#prerelease">pre-release</a> announcement.
310
311 The stable-release manager may at times need to force-push changes to the
312 stable branches, for example, to drop a previously-picked patch that was later
313 identified as causing a regression). These force-pushes may cause changes to
314 be lost from the stable branch if developers push things directly. Consider
315 yourself warned.
316
317 <h2 id="backports">Sending backports for the stable branch</h2>
318 By default merge conflicts are resolved by the stable-release manager. In which
319 case he/she should provide a comment about the changes required, alongside the
320 <code>Conflicts</code> section. Summary of which will be provided in the
321 <a href="releasing.html#prerelease">pre-release</a> announcement.
322 <br>
323 Developers are interested in sending backports are recommended to use either a
324 <code>[BACKPORT #branch]</code> subject prefix or provides similar information
325 within the commit summary.
326
327 <h2 id="gittips">Git tips</h2>
328
329 <ul>
330 <li><code>git rebase -i ...</code> is your friend. Don't be afraid to use it.
331 <li>Apply a fixup to commit FOO.
332 <pre>
333 git add ...
334 git commit --fixup=FOO
335 git rebase -i --autosquash ...
336 </pre>
337 <li>Test for build breakage between patches e.g last 8 commits.
338 <pre>
339 git rebase -i --exec="make -j4" HEAD~8
340 </pre>
341 <li>Sets the default mailing address for your repo.
342 <pre>
343 git config --local sendemail.to mesa-dev@lists.freedesktop.org
344 </pre>
345 <li> Add version to subject line of patch series in this case for the last 8
346 commits before sending.
347 <pre>
348 git send-email --subject-prefix="PATCH v4" HEAD~8
349 git send-email -v4 @~8 # shorter version, inherited from git format-patch
350 </pre>
351 <li> Configure git to use the get_reviewer.pl script interactively. Thus you
352 can avoid adding the world to the CC list.
353 <pre>
354 git config sendemail.cccmd "./scripts/get_reviewer.pl -i"
355 </pre>
356 </ul>
357
358
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