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 404 <div id="header">
 405 <h1>
 406 git-format-patch(1) Manual Page
 407 </h1>
 408 <h2>NAME</h2>
 409 <div class="sectionbody">
 410 <p>git-format-patch -
 411    Prepare patches for e-mail submission
 412 </p>
 413 </div>
 414 </div>
 415 <h2 id="_synopsis">SYNOPSIS</h2>
 416 <div class="sectionbody">
 417 <div class="verseblock">
 418 <div class="verseblock-content"><em>git format-patch</em> [-k] [(-o|--output-directory) &lt;dir&gt; | --stdout]
 419                    [--no-thread | --thread[=&lt;style&gt;]]
 420                    [(--attach|--inline)[=&lt;boundary&gt;] | --no-attach]
 421                    [-s | --signoff]
 422                    [--signature=&lt;signature&gt; | --no-signature]
 423                    [-n | --numbered | -N | --no-numbered]
 424                    [--start-number &lt;n&gt;] [--numbered-files]
 425                    [--in-reply-to=Message-Id] [--suffix=.&lt;sfx&gt;]
 426                    [--ignore-if-in-upstream]
 427                    [--subject-prefix=Subject-Prefix]
 428                    [--to=&lt;email&gt;] [--cc=&lt;email&gt;]
 429                    [--cover-letter]
 430                    [&lt;common diff options&gt;]
 431                    [ &lt;since&gt; | &lt;revision range&gt; ]</div>
 432 <div class="verseblock-attribution">
 433 </div></div>
 434 </div>
 435 <h2 id="_description">DESCRIPTION</h2>
 436 <div class="sectionbody">
 437 <div class="paragraph"><p>Prepare each commit with its patch in
 438 one file per commit, formatted to resemble UNIX mailbox format.
 439 The output of this command is convenient for e-mail submission or
 440 for use with <em>git am</em>.</p></div>
 441 <div class="paragraph"><p>There are two ways to specify which commits to operate on.</p></div>
 442 <div class="olist arabic"><ol class="arabic">
 443 <li>
 444 <p>
 445 A single commit, &lt;since&gt;, specifies that the commits leading
 446    to the tip of the current branch that are not in the history
 447    that leads to the &lt;since&gt; to be output.
 448 </p>
 449 </li>
 450 <li>
 451 <p>
 452 Generic &lt;revision range&gt; expression (see "SPECIFYING
 453    REVISIONS" section in <a href="gitrevisions.html">gitrevisions(7)</a>) means the
 454    commits in the specified range.
 455 </p>
 456 </li>
 457 </ol></div>
 458 <div class="paragraph"><p>The first rule takes precedence in the case of a single &lt;commit&gt;.  To
 459 apply the second rule, i.e., format everything since the beginning of
 460 history up until &lt;commit&gt;, use the <em>--root</em> option: <tt>git format-patch
 461 --root &lt;commit&gt;</tt>.  If you want to format only &lt;commit&gt; itself, you
 462 can do this with <tt>git format-patch -1 &lt;commit&gt;</tt>.</p></div>
 463 <div class="paragraph"><p>By default, each output file is numbered sequentially from 1, and uses the
 464 first line of the commit message (massaged for pathname safety) as
 465 the filename. With the <tt>--numbered-files</tt> option, the output file names
 466 will only be numbers, without the first line of the commit appended.
 467 The names of the output files are printed to standard
 468 output, unless the <tt>--stdout</tt> option is specified.</p></div>
 469 <div class="paragraph"><p>If <tt>-o</tt> is specified, output files are created in &lt;dir&gt;.  Otherwise
 470 they are created in the current working directory.</p></div>
 471 <div class="paragraph"><p>By default, the subject of a single patch is "[PATCH] First Line" and
 472 the subject when multiple patches are output is "[PATCH n/m] First
 473 Line". To force 1/1 to be added for a single patch, use <tt>-n</tt>.  To omit
 474 patch numbers from the subject, use <tt>-N</tt>.</p></div>
 475 <div class="paragraph"><p>If given <tt>--thread</tt>, <tt>git-format-patch</tt> will generate <tt>In-Reply-To</tt> and
 476 <tt>References</tt> headers to make the second and subsequent patch mails appear
 477 as replies to the first mail; this also generates a <tt>Message-Id</tt> header to
 478 reference.</p></div>
 479 </div>
 480 <h2 id="_options">OPTIONS</h2>
 481 <div class="sectionbody">
 482 <div class="dlist"><dl>
 483 <dt class="hdlist1">
 484 -p
 485 </dt>
 486 <dt class="hdlist1">
 487 --no-stat
 488 </dt>
 489 <dd>
 490 <p>
 491         Generate plain patches without any diffstats.
 492 </p>
 493 </dd>
 494 <dt class="hdlist1">
 495 -U&lt;n&gt;
 496 </dt>
 497 <dt class="hdlist1">
 498 --unified=&lt;n&gt;
 499 </dt>
 500 <dd>
 501 <p>
 502         Generate diffs with &lt;n&gt; lines of context instead of
 503         the usual three.
 504 </p>
 505 </dd>
 506 <dt class="hdlist1">
 507 --patience
 508 </dt>
 509 <dd>
 510 <p>
 511         Generate a diff using the "patience diff" algorithm.
 512 </p>
 513 </dd>
 514 <dt class="hdlist1">
 515 --stat[=&lt;width&gt;[,&lt;name-width&gt;]]
 516 </dt>
 517 <dd>
 518 <p>
 519         Generate a diffstat.  You can override the default
 520         output width for 80-column terminal by <tt>--stat=&lt;width&gt;</tt>.
 521         The width of the filename part can be controlled by
 522         giving another width to it separated by a comma.
 523 </p>
 524 </dd>
 525 <dt class="hdlist1">
 526 --numstat
 527 </dt>
 528 <dd>
 529 <p>
 530         Similar to <tt>--stat</tt>, but shows number of added and
 531         deleted lines in decimal notation and pathname without
 532         abbreviation, to make it more machine friendly.  For
 533         binary files, outputs two <tt>-</tt> instead of saying
 534         <tt>0 0</tt>.
 535 </p>
 536 </dd>
 537 <dt class="hdlist1">
 538 --shortstat
 539 </dt>
 540 <dd>
 541 <p>
 542         Output only the last line of the <tt>--stat</tt> format containing total
 543         number of modified files, as well as number of added and deleted
 544         lines.
 545 </p>
 546 </dd>
 547 <dt class="hdlist1">
 548 --dirstat[=&lt;limit&gt;]
 549 </dt>
 550 <dd>
 551 <p>
 552         Output the distribution of relative amount of changes (number of lines added or
 553         removed) for each sub-directory. Directories with changes below
 554         a cut-off percent (3% by default) are not shown. The cut-off percent
 555         can be set with <tt>--dirstat=&lt;limit&gt;</tt>. Changes in a child directory are not
 556         counted for the parent directory, unless <tt>--cumulative</tt> is used.
 557 </p>
 558 </dd>
 559 <dt class="hdlist1">
 560 --dirstat-by-file[=&lt;limit&gt;]
 561 </dt>
 562 <dd>
 563 <p>
 564         Same as <tt>--dirstat</tt>, but counts changed files instead of lines.
 565 </p>
 566 </dd>
 567 <dt class="hdlist1">
 568 --summary
 569 </dt>
 570 <dd>
 571 <p>
 572         Output a condensed summary of extended header information
 573         such as creations, renames and mode changes.
 574 </p>
 575 </dd>
 576 <dt class="hdlist1">
 577 --no-renames
 578 </dt>
 579 <dd>
 580 <p>
 581         Turn off rename detection, even when the configuration
 582         file gives the default to do so.
 583 </p>
 584 </dd>
 585 <dt class="hdlist1">
 586 --full-index
 587 </dt>
 588 <dd>
 589 <p>
 590         Instead of the first handful of characters, show the full
 591         pre- and post-image blob object names on the "index"
 592         line when generating patch format output.
 593 </p>
 594 </dd>
 595 <dt class="hdlist1">
 596 --binary
 597 </dt>
 598 <dd>
 599 <p>
 600         In addition to <tt>--full-index</tt>, output a binary diff that
 601         can be applied with <tt>git-apply</tt>.
 602 </p>
 603 </dd>
 604 <dt class="hdlist1">
 605 --abbrev[=&lt;n&gt;]
 606 </dt>
 607 <dd>
 608 <p>
 609         Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal object
 610         name in diff-raw format output and diff-tree header
 611         lines, show only a partial prefix.  This is
 612         independent of the <tt>--full-index</tt> option above, which controls
 613         the diff-patch output format.  Non default number of
 614         digits can be specified with <tt>--abbrev=&lt;n&gt;</tt>.
 615 </p>
 616 </dd>
 617 <dt class="hdlist1">
 618 -B[&lt;n&gt;][/&lt;m&gt;]
 619 </dt>
 620 <dt class="hdlist1">
 621 --break-rewrites[=[&lt;n&gt;][/&lt;m&gt;]]
 622 </dt>
 623 <dd>
 624 <p>
 625         Break complete rewrite changes into pairs of delete and
 626         create. This serves two purposes:
 627 </p>
 628 <div class="paragraph"><p>It affects the way a change that amounts to a total rewrite of a file
 629 not as a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with a very
 630 few lines that happen to match textually as the context, but as a
 631 single deletion of everything old followed by a single insertion of
 632 everything new, and the number <tt>m</tt> controls this aspect of the -B
 633 option (defaults to 60%). <tt>-B/70%</tt> specifies that less than 30% of the
 634 original should remain in the result for git to consider it a total
 635 rewrite (i.e. otherwise the resulting patch will be a series of
 636 deletion and insertion mixed together with context lines).</p></div>
 637 <div class="paragraph"><p>When used with -M, a totally-rewritten file is also considered as the
 638 source of a rename (usually -M only considers a file that disappeared
 639 as the source of a rename), and the number <tt>n</tt> controls this aspect of
 640 the -B option (defaults to 50%). <tt>-B20%</tt> specifies that a change with
 641 addition and deletion compared to 20% or more of the file&#8217;s size are
 642 eligible for being picked up as a possible source of a rename to
 643 another file.</p></div>
 644 </dd>
 645 <dt class="hdlist1">
 646 -M[&lt;n&gt;]
 647 </dt>
 648 <dt class="hdlist1">
 649 --find-renames[=&lt;n&gt;]
 650 </dt>
 651 <dd>
 652 <p>
 653         Detect renames.
 654         If <tt>n</tt> is specified, it is a is a threshold on the similarity
 655         index (i.e. amount of addition/deletions compared to the
 656         file&#8217;s size). For example, <tt>-M90%</tt> means git should consider a
 657         delete/add pair to be a rename if more than 90% of the file
 658         hasn&#8217;t changed.
 659 </p>
 660 </dd>
 661 <dt class="hdlist1">
 662 -C[&lt;n&gt;]
 663 </dt>
 664 <dt class="hdlist1">
 665 --find-copies[=&lt;n&gt;]
 666 </dt>
 667 <dd>
 668 <p>
 669         Detect copies as well as renames.  See also <tt>--find-copies-harder</tt>.
 670         If <tt>n</tt> is specified, it has the same meaning as for <tt>-M&lt;n&gt;</tt>.
 671 </p>
 672 </dd>
 673 <dt class="hdlist1">
 674 --find-copies-harder
 675 </dt>
 676 <dd>
 677 <p>
 678         For performance reasons, by default, <tt>-C</tt> option finds copies only
 679         if the original file of the copy was modified in the same
 680         changeset.  This flag makes the command
 681         inspect unmodified files as candidates for the source of
 682         copy.  This is a very expensive operation for large
 683         projects, so use it with caution.  Giving more than one
 684         <tt>-C</tt> option has the same effect.
 685 </p>
 686 </dd>
 687 <dt class="hdlist1">
 688 -l&lt;num&gt;
 689 </dt>
 690 <dd>
 691 <p>
 692         The <tt>-M</tt> and <tt>-C</tt> options require O(n^2) processing time where n
 693         is the number of potential rename/copy targets.  This
 694         option prevents rename/copy detection from running if
 695         the number of rename/copy targets exceeds the specified
 696         number.
 697 </p>
 698 </dd>
 699 <dt class="hdlist1">
 700 -O&lt;orderfile&gt;
 701 </dt>
 702 <dd>
 703 <p>
 704         Output the patch in the order specified in the
 705         &lt;orderfile&gt;, which has one shell glob pattern per line.
 706 </p>
 707 </dd>
 708 <dt class="hdlist1">
 709 -a
 710 </dt>
 711 <dt class="hdlist1">
 712 --text
 713 </dt>
 714 <dd>
 715 <p>
 716         Treat all files as text.
 717 </p>
 718 </dd>
 719 <dt class="hdlist1">
 720 --ignore-space-at-eol
 721 </dt>
 722 <dd>
 723 <p>
 724         Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
 725 </p>
 726 </dd>
 727 <dt class="hdlist1">
 728 -b
 729 </dt>
 730 <dt class="hdlist1">
 731 --ignore-space-change
 732 </dt>
 733 <dd>
 734 <p>
 735         Ignore changes in amount of whitespace.  This ignores whitespace
 736         at line end, and considers all other sequences of one or
 737         more whitespace characters to be equivalent.
 738 </p>
 739 </dd>
 740 <dt class="hdlist1">
 741 -w
 742 </dt>
 743 <dt class="hdlist1">
 744 --ignore-all-space
 745 </dt>
 746 <dd>
 747 <p>
 748         Ignore whitespace when comparing lines.  This ignores
 749         differences even if one line has whitespace where the other
 750         line has none.
 751 </p>
 752 </dd>
 753 <dt class="hdlist1">
 754 --inter-hunk-context=&lt;lines&gt;
 755 </dt>
 756 <dd>
 757 <p>
 758         Show the context between diff hunks, up to the specified number
 759         of lines, thereby fusing hunks that are close to each other.
 760 </p>
 761 </dd>
 762 <dt class="hdlist1">
 763 --ext-diff
 764 </dt>
 765 <dd>
 766 <p>
 767         Allow an external diff helper to be executed. If you set an
 768         external diff driver with <a href="gitattributes.html">gitattributes(5)</a>, you need
 769         to use this option with <a href="git-log.html">git-log(1)</a> and friends.
 770 </p>
 771 </dd>
 772 <dt class="hdlist1">
 773 --no-ext-diff
 774 </dt>
 775 <dd>
 776 <p>
 777         Disallow external diff drivers.
 778 </p>
 779 </dd>
 780 <dt class="hdlist1">
 781 --ignore-submodules[=&lt;when&gt;]
 782 </dt>
 783 <dd>
 784 <p>
 785         Ignore changes to submodules in the diff generation. &lt;when&gt; can be
 786         either "none", "untracked", "dirty" or "all", which is the default
 787         Using "none" will consider the submodule modified when it either contains
 788         untracked or modified files or its HEAD differs from the commit recorded
 789         in the superproject and can be used to override any settings of the
 790         <em>ignore</em> option in <a href="git-config.html">git-config(1)</a> or <a href="gitmodules.html">gitmodules(5)</a>. When
 791         "untracked" is used submodules are not considered dirty when they only
 792         contain untracked content (but they are still scanned for modified
 793         content). Using "dirty" ignores all changes to the work tree of submodules,
 794         only changes to the commits stored in the superproject are shown (this was
 795         the behavior until 1.7.0). Using "all" hides all changes to submodules.
 796 </p>
 797 </dd>
 798 <dt class="hdlist1">
 799 --src-prefix=&lt;prefix&gt;
 800 </dt>
 801 <dd>
 802 <p>
 803         Show the given source prefix instead of "a/".
 804 </p>
 805 </dd>
 806 <dt class="hdlist1">
 807 --dst-prefix=&lt;prefix&gt;
 808 </dt>
 809 <dd>
 810 <p>
 811         Show the given destination prefix instead of "b/".
 812 </p>
 813 </dd>
 814 <dt class="hdlist1">
 815 --no-prefix
 816 </dt>
 817 <dd>
 818 <p>
 819         Do not show any source or destination prefix.
 820 </p>
 821 </dd>
 822 </dl></div>
 823 <div class="paragraph"><p>For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also
 824 <a href="gitdiffcore.html">gitdiffcore(7)</a>.</p></div>
 825 <div class="dlist"><dl>
 826 <dt class="hdlist1">
 827 -&lt;n&gt;
 828 </dt>
 829 <dd>
 830 <p>
 831         Prepare patches from the topmost &lt;n&gt; commits.
 832 </p>
 833 </dd>
 834 <dt class="hdlist1">
 835 -o &lt;dir&gt;
 836 </dt>
 837 <dt class="hdlist1">
 838 --output-directory &lt;dir&gt;
 839 </dt>
 840 <dd>
 841 <p>
 842         Use &lt;dir&gt; to store the resulting files, instead of the
 843         current working directory.
 844 </p>
 845 </dd>
 846 <dt class="hdlist1">
 847 -n
 848 </dt>
 849 <dt class="hdlist1">
 850 --numbered
 851 </dt>
 852 <dd>
 853 <p>
 854         Name output in <em>[PATCH n/m]</em> format, even with a single patch.
 855 </p>
 856 </dd>
 857 <dt class="hdlist1">
 858 -N
 859 </dt>
 860 <dt class="hdlist1">
 861 --no-numbered
 862 </dt>
 863 <dd>
 864 <p>
 865         Name output in <em>[PATCH]</em> format.
 866 </p>
 867 </dd>
 868 <dt class="hdlist1">
 869 --start-number &lt;n&gt;
 870 </dt>
 871 <dd>
 872 <p>
 873         Start numbering the patches at &lt;n&gt; instead of 1.
 874 </p>
 875 </dd>
 876 <dt class="hdlist1">
 877 --numbered-files
 878 </dt>
 879 <dd>
 880 <p>
 881         Output file names will be a simple number sequence
 882         without the default first line of the commit appended.
 883 </p>
 884 </dd>
 885 <dt class="hdlist1">
 886 -k
 887 </dt>
 888 <dt class="hdlist1">
 889 --keep-subject
 890 </dt>
 891 <dd>
 892 <p>
 893         Do not strip/add <em>[PATCH]</em> from the first line of the
 894         commit log message.
 895 </p>
 896 </dd>
 897 <dt class="hdlist1">
 898 -s
 899 </dt>
 900 <dt class="hdlist1">
 901 --signoff
 902 </dt>
 903 <dd>
 904 <p>
 905         Add <tt>Signed-off-by:</tt> line to the commit message, using
 906         the committer identity of yourself.
 907 </p>
 908 </dd>
 909 <dt class="hdlist1">
 910 --stdout
 911 </dt>
 912 <dd>
 913 <p>
 914         Print all commits to the standard output in mbox format,
 915         instead of creating a file for each one.
 916 </p>
 917 </dd>
 918 <dt class="hdlist1">
 919 --attach[=&lt;boundary&gt;]
 920 </dt>
 921 <dd>
 922 <p>
 923         Create multipart/mixed attachment, the first part of
 924         which is the commit message and the patch itself in the
 925         second part, with <tt>Content-Disposition: attachment</tt>.
 926 </p>
 927 </dd>
 928 <dt class="hdlist1">
 929 --no-attach
 930 </dt>
 931 <dd>
 932 <p>
 933         Disable the creation of an attachment, overriding the
 934         configuration setting.
 935 </p>
 936 </dd>
 937 <dt class="hdlist1">
 938 --inline[=&lt;boundary&gt;]
 939 </dt>
 940 <dd>
 941 <p>
 942         Create multipart/mixed attachment, the first part of
 943         which is the commit message and the patch itself in the
 944         second part, with <tt>Content-Disposition: inline</tt>.
 945 </p>
 946 </dd>
 947 <dt class="hdlist1">
 948 --thread[=&lt;style&gt;]
 949 </dt>
 950 <dt class="hdlist1">
 951 --no-thread
 952 </dt>
 953 <dd>
 954 <p>
 955         Controls addition of <tt>In-Reply-To</tt> and <tt>References</tt> headers to
 956         make the second and subsequent mails appear as replies to the
 957         first.  Also controls generation of the <tt>Message-Id</tt> header to
 958         reference.
 959 </p>
 960 <div class="paragraph"><p>The optional &lt;style&gt; argument can be either <tt>shallow</tt> or <tt>deep</tt>.
 961 <em>shallow</em> threading makes every mail a reply to the head of the
 962 series, where the head is chosen from the cover letter, the
 963 <tt>--in-reply-to</tt>, and the first patch mail, in this order.  <em>deep</em>
 964 threading makes every mail a reply to the previous one.</p></div>
 965 <div class="paragraph"><p>The default is <tt>--no-thread</tt>, unless the <em>format.thread</em> configuration
 966 is set.  If <tt>--thread</tt> is specified without a style, it defaults to the
 967 style specified by <em>format.thread</em> if any, or else <tt>shallow</tt>.</p></div>
 968 <div class="paragraph"><p>Beware that the default for <em>git send-email</em> is to thread emails
 969 itself.  If you want <tt>git format-patch</tt> to take care of threading, you
 970 will want to ensure that threading is disabled for <tt>git send-email</tt>.</p></div>
 971 </dd>
 972 <dt class="hdlist1">
 973 --in-reply-to=Message-Id
 974 </dt>
 975 <dd>
 976 <p>
 977         Make the first mail (or all the mails with <tt>--no-thread</tt>) appear as a
 978         reply to the given Message-Id, which avoids breaking threads to
 979         provide a new patch series.
 980 </p>
 981 </dd>
 982 <dt class="hdlist1">
 983 --ignore-if-in-upstream
 984 </dt>
 985 <dd>
 986 <p>
 987         Do not include a patch that matches a commit in
 988         &lt;until&gt;..&lt;since&gt;.  This will examine all patches reachable
 989         from &lt;since&gt; but not from &lt;until&gt; and compare them with the
 990         patches being generated, and any patch that matches is
 991         ignored.
 992 </p>
 993 </dd>
 994 <dt class="hdlist1">
 995 --subject-prefix=&lt;Subject-Prefix&gt;
 996 </dt>
 997 <dd>
 998 <p>
 999         Instead of the standard <em>[PATCH]</em> prefix in the subject
1000         line, instead use <em>[&lt;Subject-Prefix&gt;]</em>. This
1001         allows for useful naming of a patch series, and can be
1002         combined with the <tt>--numbered</tt> option.
1003 </p>
1004 </dd>
1005 <dt class="hdlist1">
1006 --to=&lt;email&gt;
1007 </dt>
1008 <dd>
1009 <p>
1010         Add a <tt>To:</tt> header to the email headers. This is in addition
1011         to any configured headers, and may be used multiple times.
1012 </p>
1013 </dd>
1014 <dt class="hdlist1">
1015 --cc=&lt;email&gt;
1016 </dt>
1017 <dd>
1018 <p>
1019         Add a <tt>Cc:</tt> header to the email headers. This is in addition
1020         to any configured headers, and may be used multiple times.
1021 </p>
1022 </dd>
1023 <dt class="hdlist1">
1024 --add-header=&lt;header&gt;
1025 </dt>
1026 <dd>
1027 <p>
1028         Add an arbitrary header to the email headers.  This is in addition
1029         to any configured headers, and may be used multiple times.
1030         For example, <tt>--add-header="Organization: git-foo"</tt>
1031 </p>
1032 </dd>
1033 <dt class="hdlist1">
1034 --cover-letter
1035 </dt>
1036 <dd>
1037 <p>
1038         In addition to the patches, generate a cover letter file
1039         containing the shortlog and the overall diffstat.  You can
1040         fill in a description in the file before sending it out.
1041 </p>
1042 </dd>
1043 <dt class="hdlist1">
1044 --[no]-signature=&lt;signature&gt;
1045 </dt>
1046 <dd>
1047 <p>
1048         Add a signature to each message produced. Per RFC 3676 the signature
1049         is separated from the body by a line with '-- ' on it. If the
1050         signature option is omitted the signature defaults to the git version
1051         number.
1052 </p>
1053 </dd>
1054 <dt class="hdlist1">
1055 --suffix=.&lt;sfx&gt;
1056 </dt>
1057 <dd>
1058 <p>
1059         Instead of using <tt>.patch</tt> as the suffix for generated
1060         filenames, use specified suffix.  A common alternative is
1061         <tt>--suffix=.txt</tt>.  Leaving this empty will remove the <tt>.patch</tt>
1062         suffix.
1063 </p>
1064 <div class="paragraph"><p>Note that the leading character does not have to be a dot; for example,
1065 you can use <tt>--suffix=-patch</tt> to get <tt>0001-description-of-my-change-patch</tt>.</p></div>
1066 </dd>
1067 <dt class="hdlist1">
1068 --no-binary
1069 </dt>
1070 <dd>
1071 <p>
1072         Do not output contents of changes in binary files, instead
1073         display a notice that those files changed.  Patches generated
1074         using this option cannot be applied properly, but they are
1075         still useful for code review.
1076 </p>
1077 </dd>
1078 <dt class="hdlist1">
1079 --root
1080 </dt>
1081 <dd>
1082 <p>
1083         Treat the revision argument as a &lt;revision range&gt;, even if it
1084         is just a single commit (that would normally be treated as a
1085         &lt;since&gt;).  Note that root commits included in the specified
1086         range are always formatted as creation patches, independently
1087         of this flag.
1088 </p>
1089 </dd>
1090 </dl></div>
1091 </div>
1092 <h2 id="_configuration">CONFIGURATION</h2>
1093 <div class="sectionbody">
1094 <div class="paragraph"><p>You can specify extra mail header lines to be added to each message,
1095 defaults for the subject prefix and file suffix, number patches when
1096 outputting more than one patch, add "To" or "Cc:" headers, configure
1097 attachments, and sign off patches with configuration variables.</p></div>
1098 <div class="listingblock">
1099 <div class="content">
1100 <pre><tt>[format]
1101         headers = "Organization: git-foo\n"
1102         subjectprefix = CHANGE
1103         suffix = .txt
1104         numbered = auto
1105         to = &lt;email&gt;
1106         cc = &lt;email&gt;
1107         attach [ = mime-boundary-string ]
1108         signoff = true</tt></pre>
1109 </div></div>
1110 </div>
1111 <h2 id="_examples">EXAMPLES</h2>
1112 <div class="sectionbody">
1113 <div class="ulist"><ul>
1114 <li>
1115 <p>
1116 Extract commits between revisions R1 and R2, and apply them on top of
1117 the current branch using <em>git am</em> to cherry-pick them:
1118 </p>
1119 <div class="listingblock">
1120 <div class="content">
1121 <pre><tt>$ git format-patch -k --stdout R1..R2 | git am -3 -k</tt></pre>
1122 </div></div>
1123 </li>
1124 <li>
1125 <p>
1126 Extract all commits which are in the current branch but not in the
1127 origin branch:
1128 </p>
1129 <div class="listingblock">
1130 <div class="content">
1131 <pre><tt>$ git format-patch origin</tt></pre>
1132 </div></div>
1133 <div class="paragraph"><p>For each commit a separate file is created in the current directory.</p></div>
1134 </li>
1135 <li>
1136 <p>
1137 Extract all commits that lead to <em>origin</em> since the inception of the
1138 project:
1139 </p>
1140 <div class="listingblock">
1141 <div class="content">
1142 <pre><tt>$ git format-patch --root origin</tt></pre>
1143 </div></div>
1144 </li>
1145 <li>
1146 <p>
1147 The same as the previous one:
1148 </p>
1149 <div class="listingblock">
1150 <div class="content">
1151 <pre><tt>$ git format-patch -M -B origin</tt></pre>
1152 </div></div>
1153 <div class="paragraph"><p>Additionally, it detects and handles renames and complete rewrites
1154 intelligently to produce a renaming patch.  A renaming patch reduces
1155 the amount of text output, and generally makes it easier to review.
1156 Note that non-git "patch" programs won&#8217;t understand renaming patches, so
1157 use it only when you know the recipient uses git to apply your patch.</p></div>
1158 </li>
1159 <li>
1160 <p>
1161 Extract three topmost commits from the current branch and format them
1162 as e-mailable patches:
1163 </p>
1164 <div class="listingblock">
1165 <div class="content">
1166 <pre><tt>$ git format-patch -3</tt></pre>
1167 </div></div>
1168 </li>
1169 </ul></div>
1170 </div>
1171 <h2 id="_see_also">SEE ALSO</h2>
1172 <div class="sectionbody">
1173 <div class="paragraph"><p><a href="git-am.html">git-am(1)</a>, <a href="git-send-email.html">git-send-email(1)</a></p></div>
1174 </div>
1175 <h2 id="_git">GIT</h2>
1176 <div class="sectionbody">
1177 <div class="paragraph"><p>Part of the <a href="git.html">git(1)</a> suite</p></div>
1178 </div>
1179 <div id="footer">
1180 <div id="footer-text">
1181 Last updated 2011-03-15 23:30:13 UTC
1182 </div>
1183 </div>
1184 </body>
1185 </html>