From: "Onur Özkan" <work@onurozkan.dev>
To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Cc: apw@canonical.com, joe@perches.com, dwaipayanray1@gmail.com,
lukas.bulwahn@gmail.com, "Onur Özkan" <work@onurozkan.dev>
Subject: [PATCH] checkpatch: warn on unhandled placeholders in cover letters
Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2025 14:49:09 +0300 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20250917114909.7678-1-work@onurozkan.dev> (raw)
Adds a new check to detect unhandled placeholders in cover letters.
This prevents sending patch series with incomplete cover letters
containing auto generated subject or blurb lines such as:
*** SUBJECT HERE ***
*** BLURB HERE ***
These placeholders can be seen on mailing lists (e.g., searching
for "BLURB HERE" on lore.kernel.org). With this patch, checkpatch
will emit a warning when such text is found.
Example output on an invalid cover letter:
WARNING: Incomplete cover letter: placeholder text detected
#4: FILE: ./0000-cover-letter.patch:4:
+Subject: [PATCH 0/4] *** SUBJECT HERE ***
WARNING: Incomplete cover letter: placeholder text detected
#9: FILE: ./0000-cover-letter.patch:9:
+*** BLURB HERE ***
total: 0 errors, 2 warnings, 24 lines checked
NOTE: For some of the reported defects, checkpatch may be able to
mechanically convert to the typical style using --fix or --fix-inplace.
./0000-cover-letter.patch has style problems, please review.
NOTE: If any of the errors are false positives, please report
them to the maintainer, see CHECKPATCH in MAINTAINERS.
Signed-off-by: Onur Özkan <work@onurozkan.dev>
---
scripts/checkpatch.pl | 9 +++++++++
1 file changed, 9 insertions(+)
diff --git a/scripts/checkpatch.pl b/scripts/checkpatch.pl
index e722dd6fa8ef..9d5ded376112 100755
--- a/scripts/checkpatch.pl
+++ b/scripts/checkpatch.pl
@@ -3339,6 +3339,15 @@ sub process {
$fixed[$fixlinenr] =~ s/^/ /;
}
}
+# Check for unhandled placeholder text in cover letters
+ if ($filename =~ /cover-letter\.patch$/) {
+ if ($rawline =~ /^\+Subject:.*\*\*\* SUBJECT HERE \*\*\*/ ||
+ $rawline =~ /^\+\*\*\* BLURB HERE \*\*\*/) {
+ my $placeholder = $1 || $2;
+ WARN("COVER_LETTER_PLACEHOLDER",
+ "Incomplete cover letter: placeholder text detected\n" . $herecurr);
+ }
+ }
# Check for git id commit length and improperly formed commit descriptions
# A correctly formed commit description is:
--
2.51.0
next reply other threads:[~2025-09-17 11:49 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 4+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2025-09-17 11:49 Onur Özkan [this message]
2025-09-17 14:01 ` [PATCH] checkpatch: warn on unhandled placeholders in cover letters Onur Özkan
2025-09-17 15:43 ` Joe Perches
2025-09-17 17:34 ` Onur Özkan
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