Making a patch¶

You’ve discovered a bug or something else you want to change in ODL — excellent!

You’ve worked out a way to fix it — even better!

You want to tell us about it — best of all!

The easiest way is to make a patch or set of patches. Here we explain how. Making a patch is simplest and quickest, but if you’re going to be doing anything more than simple quick things, please consider following the Git for development model instead.

Making patches¶

Overview¶

  # Tell Git who you are
$ git config --global user.email you@yourdomain.example.com
$ git config --global user.name "Your Name Comes Here"

  # Get the repository if you don't have it already
$ git clone https://github.com/odlgroup/odl.git

  # Make a branch for your patching
$ cd odl
$ git branch the-fix-im-thinking-of
$ git checkout the-fix-im-thinking-of

  # hack, hack, hack

  # Tell Git about any new files you've made
$ git add somewhere/tests/test_my_bug.py
  # Commit work in progress as you go
$ git commit -am "TST: add tests for Funny bug"

  # hack hack, hack

$ git commit -am "BUG: add fix for Funny bug"

  # Make the patch files
$ git format-patch -M -C master

Then, send the generated patch files to the ODL mailing list — where we will thank you warmly.

In detail¶

Tell Git who you are so it can label the commits you’ve made:

$ git config --global user.email you@yourdomain.example.com
$ git config --global user.name "Your Name Comes Here"

If you don’t already have one, clone a copy of the ODL repository:
```
$ git clone https://github.com/odlgroup/odl.git
$ cd odl
```
Make a ‘feature branch’. This will be where you work on your bug fix. It’s nice and safe and leaves you with access to an unmodified copy of the code in the main branch (master).
```
$ git branch the-fix-im-thinking-of
$ git checkout the-fix-im-thinking-of
```

Do some edits, and commit them as you go:

  # hack, hack, hack

  # Tell Git about any new files you've made
$ git add somewhere/tests/test_my_bug.py
  # commit work in progress as you go
$ git commit -am "TST: add tests for Funny bug"
  # hack hack, hack
$ git commit -am "BUG: add fix for Funny bug"

Note the -am options to commit. The m flag just signals that you’re going to type a message on the command line. The a flag — you can just take on faith — or see why the -a flag?.

When you are finished, check you have committed all your changes:
```
$ git status
```
Finally, turn your commits into patches. You want all the commits since you branched off from the master branch:
```
$ git format-patch -M -C master
```
You will now have several files named after the commits:
```
0001-TST-add-tests-for-Funny-bug.patch
0002-BUG-add-fix-for-Funny-bug.patch
```
Send these files to the ODL mailing list.

When you are done, to switch back to the main copy of the code, just return to the master branch:

$ git checkout master

Moving from patching to development¶

If you find you have done some patches, and you have one or more feature branches, you will probably want to switch to development mode. You can do this with the repository you have.

Fork the ODL repository on GitHub — see Making your own copy (fork) of ODL. Then:

  # checkout and refresh master branch from main repo
$ git checkout master
$ git pull origin master
  # rename pointer to main repository to 'upstream'
$ git remote rename origin upstream
  # point your repo to default read / write to your fork on GitHub
$ git remote add myfork git@github.com:your-user-name/odl.git
  # push up any branches you've made and want to keep
$ git push myfork the-fix-im-thinking-of

Now you can follow the Development workflow.