Process to Submit a Patch

Steps to Create a patch

• Fork the repository and make a local clone. If already cloned, then synch them.
• Create a topic branch use the branch name as “bug/” or “feature/”
• A patch should always have a reference bug/issue number
• Make the changes and run all the necessary tests
• Never use git commit -m option instead just use git commit.
• Provide the following fields once you hit the vim or nano editor
  • Closes-Bug: issues: bug_Id
  • Description: Add single liner to explain what it does a bug or a feature
  • Describe what the fix does in as much details as possible
  • Maintain a width of 72 characters for each line
  • There are commands available for nano or vim which helps to maintain the required line width
• Push the changes to your fork
• Have one single commit for each pull request
• Now create a pull request to the master branch
• To append a change after staging the file use the git commit –amend, rest of the flow remains same

How to squash multiple commits

A simple way to merge last 3 commits and to write the new commit message from scratch is:

git reset --soft HEAD~3 && git commit

Synch your cloned repo with master

Whenever you start working on a new fix/feature, if you have already cloned the repo first ensure its kept in synch with master. It can be easily done with the following:

git fetch upstream
git reset --hard upstream/master
git push --force origin master

References
[1] How to write good commit messages