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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] [--quiet]
 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 <div class="paragraph"><p>Note that the <tt>--dirstat</tt> option computes the changes while ignoring
 559 the amount of pure code movements within a file.  In other words,
 560 rearranging lines in a file is not counted as much as other changes.</p></div>
 561 </dd>
 562 <dt class="hdlist1">
 563 --dirstat-by-file[=&lt;limit&gt;]
 564 </dt>
 565 <dd>
 566 <p>
 567         Same as <tt>--dirstat</tt>, but counts changed files instead of lines.
 568 </p>
 569 </dd>
 570 <dt class="hdlist1">
 571 --summary
 572 </dt>
 573 <dd>
 574 <p>
 575         Output a condensed summary of extended header information
 576         such as creations, renames and mode changes.
 577 </p>
 578 </dd>
 579 <dt class="hdlist1">
 580 --no-renames
 581 </dt>
 582 <dd>
 583 <p>
 584         Turn off rename detection, even when the configuration
 585         file gives the default to do so.
 586 </p>
 587 </dd>
 588 <dt class="hdlist1">
 589 --full-index
 590 </dt>
 591 <dd>
 592 <p>
 593         Instead of the first handful of characters, show the full
 594         pre- and post-image blob object names on the "index"
 595         line when generating patch format output.
 596 </p>
 597 </dd>
 598 <dt class="hdlist1">
 599 --binary
 600 </dt>
 601 <dd>
 602 <p>
 603         In addition to <tt>--full-index</tt>, output a binary diff that
 604         can be applied with <tt>git-apply</tt>.
 605 </p>
 606 </dd>
 607 <dt class="hdlist1">
 608 --abbrev[=&lt;n&gt;]
 609 </dt>
 610 <dd>
 611 <p>
 612         Instead of showing the full 40-byte hexadecimal object
 613         name in diff-raw format output and diff-tree header
 614         lines, show only a partial prefix.  This is
 615         independent of the <tt>--full-index</tt> option above, which controls
 616         the diff-patch output format.  Non default number of
 617         digits can be specified with <tt>--abbrev=&lt;n&gt;</tt>.
 618 </p>
 619 </dd>
 620 <dt class="hdlist1">
 621 -B[&lt;n&gt;][/&lt;m&gt;]
 622 </dt>
 623 <dt class="hdlist1">
 624 --break-rewrites[=[&lt;n&gt;][/&lt;m&gt;]]
 625 </dt>
 626 <dd>
 627 <p>
 628         Break complete rewrite changes into pairs of delete and
 629         create. This serves two purposes:
 630 </p>
 631 <div class="paragraph"><p>It affects the way a change that amounts to a total rewrite of a file
 632 not as a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with a very
 633 few lines that happen to match textually as the context, but as a
 634 single deletion of everything old followed by a single insertion of
 635 everything new, and the number <tt>m</tt> controls this aspect of the -B
 636 option (defaults to 60%). <tt>-B/70%</tt> specifies that less than 30% of the
 637 original should remain in the result for git to consider it a total
 638 rewrite (i.e. otherwise the resulting patch will be a series of
 639 deletion and insertion mixed together with context lines).</p></div>
 640 <div class="paragraph"><p>When used with -M, a totally-rewritten file is also considered as the
 641 source of a rename (usually -M only considers a file that disappeared
 642 as the source of a rename), and the number <tt>n</tt> controls this aspect of
 643 the -B option (defaults to 50%). <tt>-B20%</tt> specifies that a change with
 644 addition and deletion compared to 20% or more of the file&#8217;s size are
 645 eligible for being picked up as a possible source of a rename to
 646 another file.</p></div>
 647 </dd>
 648 <dt class="hdlist1">
 649 -M[&lt;n&gt;]
 650 </dt>
 651 <dt class="hdlist1">
 652 --find-renames[=&lt;n&gt;]
 653 </dt>
 654 <dd>
 655 <p>
 656         Detect renames.
 657         If <tt>n</tt> is specified, it is a is a threshold on the similarity
 658         index (i.e. amount of addition/deletions compared to the
 659         file&#8217;s size). For example, <tt>-M90%</tt> means git should consider a
 660         delete/add pair to be a rename if more than 90% of the file
 661         hasn&#8217;t changed.
 662 </p>
 663 </dd>
 664 <dt class="hdlist1">
 665 -C[&lt;n&gt;]
 666 </dt>
 667 <dt class="hdlist1">
 668 --find-copies[=&lt;n&gt;]
 669 </dt>
 670 <dd>
 671 <p>
 672         Detect copies as well as renames.  See also <tt>--find-copies-harder</tt>.
 673         If <tt>n</tt> is specified, it has the same meaning as for <tt>-M&lt;n&gt;</tt>.
 674 </p>
 675 </dd>
 676 <dt class="hdlist1">
 677 --find-copies-harder
 678 </dt>
 679 <dd>
 680 <p>
 681         For performance reasons, by default, <tt>-C</tt> option finds copies only
 682         if the original file of the copy was modified in the same
 683         changeset.  This flag makes the command
 684         inspect unmodified files as candidates for the source of
 685         copy.  This is a very expensive operation for large
 686         projects, so use it with caution.  Giving more than one
 687         <tt>-C</tt> option has the same effect.
 688 </p>
 689 </dd>
 690 <dt class="hdlist1">
 691 -D
 692 </dt>
 693 <dt class="hdlist1">
 694 --irreversible-delete
 695 </dt>
 696 <dd>
 697 <p>
 698         Omit the preimage for deletes, i.e. print only the header but not
 699         the diff between the preimage and <tt>/dev/null</tt>. The resulting patch
 700         is not meant to be applied with <tt>patch</tt> nor <tt>git apply</tt>; this is
 701         solely for people who want to just concentrate on reviewing the
 702         text after the change. In addition, the output obviously lack
 703         enough information to apply such a patch in reverse, even manually,
 704         hence the name of the option.
 705 </p>
 706 <div class="paragraph"><p>When used together with <tt>-B</tt>, omit also the preimage in the deletion part
 707 of a delete/create pair.</p></div>
 708 </dd>
 709 <dt class="hdlist1">
 710 -l&lt;num&gt;
 711 </dt>
 712 <dd>
 713 <p>
 714         The <tt>-M</tt> and <tt>-C</tt> options require O(n^2) processing time where n
 715         is the number of potential rename/copy targets.  This
 716         option prevents rename/copy detection from running if
 717         the number of rename/copy targets exceeds the specified
 718         number.
 719 </p>
 720 </dd>
 721 <dt class="hdlist1">
 722 -O&lt;orderfile&gt;
 723 </dt>
 724 <dd>
 725 <p>
 726         Output the patch in the order specified in the
 727         &lt;orderfile&gt;, which has one shell glob pattern per line.
 728 </p>
 729 </dd>
 730 <dt class="hdlist1">
 731 -a
 732 </dt>
 733 <dt class="hdlist1">
 734 --text
 735 </dt>
 736 <dd>
 737 <p>
 738         Treat all files as text.
 739 </p>
 740 </dd>
 741 <dt class="hdlist1">
 742 --ignore-space-at-eol
 743 </dt>
 744 <dd>
 745 <p>
 746         Ignore changes in whitespace at EOL.
 747 </p>
 748 </dd>
 749 <dt class="hdlist1">
 750 -b
 751 </dt>
 752 <dt class="hdlist1">
 753 --ignore-space-change
 754 </dt>
 755 <dd>
 756 <p>
 757         Ignore changes in amount of whitespace.  This ignores whitespace
 758         at line end, and considers all other sequences of one or
 759         more whitespace characters to be equivalent.
 760 </p>
 761 </dd>
 762 <dt class="hdlist1">
 763 -w
 764 </dt>
 765 <dt class="hdlist1">
 766 --ignore-all-space
 767 </dt>
 768 <dd>
 769 <p>
 770         Ignore whitespace when comparing lines.  This ignores
 771         differences even if one line has whitespace where the other
 772         line has none.
 773 </p>
 774 </dd>
 775 <dt class="hdlist1">
 776 --inter-hunk-context=&lt;lines&gt;
 777 </dt>
 778 <dd>
 779 <p>
 780         Show the context between diff hunks, up to the specified number
 781         of lines, thereby fusing hunks that are close to each other.
 782 </p>
 783 </dd>
 784 <dt class="hdlist1">
 785 --ext-diff
 786 </dt>
 787 <dd>
 788 <p>
 789         Allow an external diff helper to be executed. If you set an
 790         external diff driver with <a href="gitattributes.html">gitattributes(5)</a>, you need
 791         to use this option with <a href="git-log.html">git-log(1)</a> and friends.
 792 </p>
 793 </dd>
 794 <dt class="hdlist1">
 795 --no-ext-diff
 796 </dt>
 797 <dd>
 798 <p>
 799         Disallow external diff drivers.
 800 </p>
 801 </dd>
 802 <dt class="hdlist1">
 803 --ignore-submodules[=&lt;when&gt;]
 804 </dt>
 805 <dd>
 806 <p>
 807         Ignore changes to submodules in the diff generation. &lt;when&gt; can be
 808         either "none", "untracked", "dirty" or "all", which is the default
 809         Using "none" will consider the submodule modified when it either contains
 810         untracked or modified files or its HEAD differs from the commit recorded
 811         in the superproject and can be used to override any settings of the
 812         <em>ignore</em> option in <a href="git-config.html">git-config(1)</a> or <a href="gitmodules.html">gitmodules(5)</a>. When
 813         "untracked" is used submodules are not considered dirty when they only
 814         contain untracked content (but they are still scanned for modified
 815         content). Using "dirty" ignores all changes to the work tree of submodules,
 816         only changes to the commits stored in the superproject are shown (this was
 817         the behavior until 1.7.0). Using "all" hides all changes to submodules.
 818 </p>
 819 </dd>
 820 <dt class="hdlist1">
 821 --src-prefix=&lt;prefix&gt;
 822 </dt>
 823 <dd>
 824 <p>
 825         Show the given source prefix instead of "a/".
 826 </p>
 827 </dd>
 828 <dt class="hdlist1">
 829 --dst-prefix=&lt;prefix&gt;
 830 </dt>
 831 <dd>
 832 <p>
 833         Show the given destination prefix instead of "b/".
 834 </p>
 835 </dd>
 836 <dt class="hdlist1">
 837 --no-prefix
 838 </dt>
 839 <dd>
 840 <p>
 841         Do not show any source or destination prefix.
 842 </p>
 843 </dd>
 844 </dl></div>
 845 <div class="paragraph"><p>For more detailed explanation on these common options, see also
 846 <a href="gitdiffcore.html">gitdiffcore(7)</a>.</p></div>
 847 <div class="dlist"><dl>
 848 <dt class="hdlist1">
 849 -&lt;n&gt;
 850 </dt>
 851 <dd>
 852 <p>
 853         Prepare patches from the topmost &lt;n&gt; commits.
 854 </p>
 855 </dd>
 856 <dt class="hdlist1">
 857 -o &lt;dir&gt;
 858 </dt>
 859 <dt class="hdlist1">
 860 --output-directory &lt;dir&gt;
 861 </dt>
 862 <dd>
 863 <p>
 864         Use &lt;dir&gt; to store the resulting files, instead of the
 865         current working directory.
 866 </p>
 867 </dd>
 868 <dt class="hdlist1">
 869 -n
 870 </dt>
 871 <dt class="hdlist1">
 872 --numbered
 873 </dt>
 874 <dd>
 875 <p>
 876         Name output in <em>[PATCH n/m]</em> format, even with a single patch.
 877 </p>
 878 </dd>
 879 <dt class="hdlist1">
 880 -N
 881 </dt>
 882 <dt class="hdlist1">
 883 --no-numbered
 884 </dt>
 885 <dd>
 886 <p>
 887         Name output in <em>[PATCH]</em> format.
 888 </p>
 889 </dd>
 890 <dt class="hdlist1">
 891 --start-number &lt;n&gt;
 892 </dt>
 893 <dd>
 894 <p>
 895         Start numbering the patches at &lt;n&gt; instead of 1.
 896 </p>
 897 </dd>
 898 <dt class="hdlist1">
 899 --numbered-files
 900 </dt>
 901 <dd>
 902 <p>
 903         Output file names will be a simple number sequence
 904         without the default first line of the commit appended.
 905 </p>
 906 </dd>
 907 <dt class="hdlist1">
 908 -k
 909 </dt>
 910 <dt class="hdlist1">
 911 --keep-subject
 912 </dt>
 913 <dd>
 914 <p>
 915         Do not strip/add <em>[PATCH]</em> from the first line of the
 916         commit log message.
 917 </p>
 918 </dd>
 919 <dt class="hdlist1">
 920 -s
 921 </dt>
 922 <dt class="hdlist1">
 923 --signoff
 924 </dt>
 925 <dd>
 926 <p>
 927         Add <tt>Signed-off-by:</tt> line to the commit message, using
 928         the committer identity of yourself.
 929 </p>
 930 </dd>
 931 <dt class="hdlist1">
 932 --stdout
 933 </dt>
 934 <dd>
 935 <p>
 936         Print all commits to the standard output in mbox format,
 937         instead of creating a file for each one.
 938 </p>
 939 </dd>
 940 <dt class="hdlist1">
 941 --attach[=&lt;boundary&gt;]
 942 </dt>
 943 <dd>
 944 <p>
 945         Create multipart/mixed attachment, the first part of
 946         which is the commit message and the patch itself in the
 947         second part, with <tt>Content-Disposition: attachment</tt>.
 948 </p>
 949 </dd>
 950 <dt class="hdlist1">
 951 --no-attach
 952 </dt>
 953 <dd>
 954 <p>
 955         Disable the creation of an attachment, overriding the
 956         configuration setting.
 957 </p>
 958 </dd>
 959 <dt class="hdlist1">
 960 --inline[=&lt;boundary&gt;]
 961 </dt>
 962 <dd>
 963 <p>
 964         Create multipart/mixed attachment, the first part of
 965         which is the commit message and the patch itself in the
 966         second part, with <tt>Content-Disposition: inline</tt>.
 967 </p>
 968 </dd>
 969 <dt class="hdlist1">
 970 --thread[=&lt;style&gt;]
 971 </dt>
 972 <dt class="hdlist1">
 973 --no-thread
 974 </dt>
 975 <dd>
 976 <p>
 977         Controls addition of <tt>In-Reply-To</tt> and <tt>References</tt> headers to
 978         make the second and subsequent mails appear as replies to the
 979         first.  Also controls generation of the <tt>Message-Id</tt> header to
 980         reference.
 981 </p>
 982 <div class="paragraph"><p>The optional &lt;style&gt; argument can be either <tt>shallow</tt> or <tt>deep</tt>.
 983 <em>shallow</em> threading makes every mail a reply to the head of the
 984 series, where the head is chosen from the cover letter, the
 985 <tt>--in-reply-to</tt>, and the first patch mail, in this order.  <em>deep</em>
 986 threading makes every mail a reply to the previous one.</p></div>
 987 <div class="paragraph"><p>The default is <tt>--no-thread</tt>, unless the <em>format.thread</em> configuration
 988 is set.  If <tt>--thread</tt> is specified without a style, it defaults to the
 989 style specified by <em>format.thread</em> if any, or else <tt>shallow</tt>.</p></div>
 990 <div class="paragraph"><p>Beware that the default for <em>git send-email</em> is to thread emails
 991 itself.  If you want <tt>git format-patch</tt> to take care of threading, you
 992 will want to ensure that threading is disabled for <tt>git send-email</tt>.</p></div>
 993 </dd>
 994 <dt class="hdlist1">
 995 --in-reply-to=Message-Id
 996 </dt>
 997 <dd>
 998 <p>
 999         Make the first mail (or all the mails with <tt>--no-thread</tt>) appear as a
1000         reply to the given Message-Id, which avoids breaking threads to
1001         provide a new patch series.
1002 </p>
1003 </dd>
1004 <dt class="hdlist1">
1005 --ignore-if-in-upstream
1006 </dt>
1007 <dd>
1008 <p>
1009         Do not include a patch that matches a commit in
1010         &lt;until&gt;..&lt;since&gt;.  This will examine all patches reachable
1011         from &lt;since&gt; but not from &lt;until&gt; and compare them with the
1012         patches being generated, and any patch that matches is
1013         ignored.
1014 </p>
1015 </dd>
1016 <dt class="hdlist1">
1017 --subject-prefix=&lt;Subject-Prefix&gt;
1018 </dt>
1019 <dd>
1020 <p>
1021         Instead of the standard <em>[PATCH]</em> prefix in the subject
1022         line, instead use <em>[&lt;Subject-Prefix&gt;]</em>. This
1023         allows for useful naming of a patch series, and can be
1024         combined with the <tt>--numbered</tt> option.
1025 </p>
1026 </dd>
1027 <dt class="hdlist1">
1028 --to=&lt;email&gt;
1029 </dt>
1030 <dd>
1031 <p>
1032         Add a <tt>To:</tt> header to the email headers. This is in addition
1033         to any configured headers, and may be used multiple times.
1034 </p>
1035 </dd>
1036 <dt class="hdlist1">
1037 --cc=&lt;email&gt;
1038 </dt>
1039 <dd>
1040 <p>
1041         Add a <tt>Cc:</tt> header to the email headers. This is in addition
1042         to any configured headers, and may be used multiple times.
1043 </p>
1044 </dd>
1045 <dt class="hdlist1">
1046 --add-header=&lt;header&gt;
1047 </dt>
1048 <dd>
1049 <p>
1050         Add an arbitrary header to the email headers.  This is in addition
1051         to any configured headers, and may be used multiple times.
1052         For example, <tt>--add-header="Organization: git-foo"</tt>
1053 </p>
1054 </dd>
1055 <dt class="hdlist1">
1056 --cover-letter
1057 </dt>
1058 <dd>
1059 <p>
1060         In addition to the patches, generate a cover letter file
1061         containing the shortlog and the overall diffstat.  You can
1062         fill in a description in the file before sending it out.
1063 </p>
1064 </dd>
1065 <dt class="hdlist1">
1066 --[no]-signature=&lt;signature&gt;
1067 </dt>
1068 <dd>
1069 <p>
1070         Add a signature to each message produced. Per RFC 3676 the signature
1071         is separated from the body by a line with '-- ' on it. If the
1072         signature option is omitted the signature defaults to the git version
1073         number.
1074 </p>
1075 </dd>
1076 <dt class="hdlist1">
1077 --suffix=.&lt;sfx&gt;
1078 </dt>
1079 <dd>
1080 <p>
1081         Instead of using <tt>.patch</tt> as the suffix for generated
1082         filenames, use specified suffix.  A common alternative is
1083         <tt>--suffix=.txt</tt>.  Leaving this empty will remove the <tt>.patch</tt>
1084         suffix.
1085 </p>
1086 <div class="paragraph"><p>Note that the leading character does not have to be a dot; for example,
1087 you can use <tt>--suffix=-patch</tt> to get <tt>0001-description-of-my-change-patch</tt>.</p></div>
1088 </dd>
1089 <dt class="hdlist1">
1090 --quiet
1091 </dt>
1092 <dd>
1093 <p>
1094         Do not print the names of the generated files to standard output.
1095 </p>
1096 </dd>
1097 <dt class="hdlist1">
1098 --no-binary
1099 </dt>
1100 <dd>
1101 <p>
1102         Do not output contents of changes in binary files, instead
1103         display a notice that those files changed.  Patches generated
1104         using this option cannot be applied properly, but they are
1105         still useful for code review.
1106 </p>
1107 </dd>
1108 <dt class="hdlist1">
1109 --root
1110 </dt>
1111 <dd>
1112 <p>
1113         Treat the revision argument as a &lt;revision range&gt;, even if it
1114         is just a single commit (that would normally be treated as a
1115         &lt;since&gt;).  Note that root commits included in the specified
1116         range are always formatted as creation patches, independently
1117         of this flag.
1118 </p>
1119 </dd>
1120 </dl></div>
1121 </div>
1122 <h2 id="_configuration">CONFIGURATION</h2>
1123 <div class="sectionbody">
1124 <div class="paragraph"><p>You can specify extra mail header lines to be added to each message,
1125 defaults for the subject prefix and file suffix, number patches when
1126 outputting more than one patch, add "To" or "Cc:" headers, configure
1127 attachments, and sign off patches with configuration variables.</p></div>
1128 <div class="listingblock">
1129 <div class="content">
1130 <pre><tt>[format]
1131         headers = "Organization: git-foo\n"
1132         subjectprefix = CHANGE
1133         suffix = .txt
1134         numbered = auto
1135         to = &lt;email&gt;
1136         cc = &lt;email&gt;
1137         attach [ = mime-boundary-string ]
1138         signoff = true</tt></pre>
1139 </div></div>
1140 </div>
1141 <h2 id="_examples">EXAMPLES</h2>
1142 <div class="sectionbody">
1143 <div class="ulist"><ul>
1144 <li>
1145 <p>
1146 Extract commits between revisions R1 and R2, and apply them on top of
1147 the current branch using <em>git am</em> to cherry-pick them:
1148 </p>
1149 <div class="listingblock">
1150 <div class="content">
1151 <pre><tt>$ git format-patch -k --stdout R1..R2 | git am -3 -k</tt></pre>
1152 </div></div>
1153 </li>
1154 <li>
1155 <p>
1156 Extract all commits which are in the current branch but not in the
1157 origin branch:
1158 </p>
1159 <div class="listingblock">
1160 <div class="content">
1161 <pre><tt>$ git format-patch origin</tt></pre>
1162 </div></div>
1163 <div class="paragraph"><p>For each commit a separate file is created in the current directory.</p></div>
1164 </li>
1165 <li>
1166 <p>
1167 Extract all commits that lead to <em>origin</em> since the inception of the
1168 project:
1169 </p>
1170 <div class="listingblock">
1171 <div class="content">
1172 <pre><tt>$ git format-patch --root origin</tt></pre>
1173 </div></div>
1174 </li>
1175 <li>
1176 <p>
1177 The same as the previous one:
1178 </p>
1179 <div class="listingblock">
1180 <div class="content">
1181 <pre><tt>$ git format-patch -M -B origin</tt></pre>
1182 </div></div>
1183 <div class="paragraph"><p>Additionally, it detects and handles renames and complete rewrites
1184 intelligently to produce a renaming patch.  A renaming patch reduces
1185 the amount of text output, and generally makes it easier to review.
1186 Note that non-git "patch" programs won&#8217;t understand renaming patches, so
1187 use it only when you know the recipient uses git to apply your patch.</p></div>
1188 </li>
1189 <li>
1190 <p>
1191 Extract three topmost commits from the current branch and format them
1192 as e-mailable patches:
1193 </p>
1194 <div class="listingblock">
1195 <div class="content">
1196 <pre><tt>$ git format-patch -3</tt></pre>
1197 </div></div>
1198 </li>
1199 </ul></div>
1200 </div>
1201 <h2 id="_see_also">SEE ALSO</h2>
1202 <div class="sectionbody">
1203 <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>
1204 </div>
1205 <h2 id="_git">GIT</h2>
1206 <div class="sectionbody">
1207 <div class="paragraph"><p>Part of the <a href="git.html">git(1)</a> suite</p></div>
1208 </div>
1209 <div id="footer">
1210 <div id="footer-text">
1211 Last updated 2011-04-27 21:09:28 UTC
1212 </div>
1213 </div>
1214 </body>
1215 </html>