Re: [PATCH 1/3] SubmittingPatches: Add style recommendation to use imperative descriptions

Josh Triplett
2013-12-15T22:06:02Z

On Sun, Dec 15, 2013 at 10:14:29PM +0100, Borislav Petkov wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 15, 2013 at 12:59:26PM -0800, Josh Triplett wrote:
> > Most commit messages use this style, and the recommendation frequently
> > comes up in discussions (especially in response to patches that don't
> > use it), but that recommendation doesn't actually appear anywhere in
> > Documentation. Add this style guideline to SubmittingPatches, using the
> > description from git's SubmittingPatches.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Josh Triplett <josh@joshtriplett.org>
>
> Acked-by: Borislav Petkov <bp@suse.de>
>
> We should probably also document the wished-for structure of a commit
> message:
>
> The current situation is A. The shortcoming is B. Change/fix it by doing
> C.
>
> This helps very much in explaining to the unenlightened onlooker what
> a patch is trying to fix without having to ask the author a bunch of
> questions first.

git's SubmittingPatches has some bits that could help there. I wouldn't
recommend writing the structure quite so rigidly (A and B aren't always
needed, depending on the nature of the problem and the fix), but some
guidance would help.

- Josh Triplett