format-patch: add '--base' option to record base tree info

Maintainers or third party testers may want to know the exact base tree
the patch series applies to. Teach git format-patch a '--base' option
to record the base tree info and append it at the end of the first
message (either the cover letter or the first patch in the series).

The base tree info consists of the "base commit", which is a well-known
commit that is part of the stable part of the project history everybody
else works off of, and zero or more "prerequisite patches", which are
well-known patches in flight that is not yet part of the "base commit"
that need to be applied on top of "base commit" in topological order
before the patches can be applied.

The "base commit" is shown as "base-commit: " followed by the 40-hex of
the commit object name.  A "prerequisite patch" is shown as
"prerequisite-patch-id: " followed by the 40-hex "patch id", which can
be obtained by passing the patch through the "git patch-id --stable"
command.

Imagine that on top of the public commit P, you applied well-known
patches X, Y and Z from somebody else, and then built your three-patch
series A, B, C, the history would be like:

---P---X---Y---Z---A---B---C

With "git format-patch --base=P -3 C" (or variants thereof, e.g. with
"--cover-letter" of using "Z..C" instead of "-3 C" to specify the
range), the base tree information block is shown at the end of the
first message the command outputs (either the first patch, or the
cover letter), like this:

base-commit: P
prerequisite-patch-id: X
prerequisite-patch-id: Y
prerequisite-patch-id: Z

Helped-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Helped-by: Wu Fengguang <fengguang.wu@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Xiaolong Ye <xiaolong.ye@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>

0 files changed, 0 insertions, 0 deletions