Provided by: aerc_0.18.2-1_amd64 
NAME
aerc-patch - local patch management for aerc(1)
SYNOPSIS
aerc provides support for managing local patch sets. In an email-based software
development workflow, there are usually many different locally applied patch series for
testing and reviewing. Managing the local repository can thus be challenging. With the
local patch management system, aerc facilitates this bookkeeping process.
When applying a patch set, aerc creates a tag for those commits. With this tag, the patch
set can be tracked and later dropped if needed. Patches are stored in a project data
structure which also keeps track of the directory where the repository is. Multiple code
bases can be tracked by defining a separate project for each.
COMMANDS
The following :patch sub-commands are supported:
:patch init [-f] [<project>]
Creates a new project <project>. If <project> is not defined, aerc will use the last
element of the current directory path. It also performs a search for a supported
repository in the current directory.
-f: Overwrite an existing project.
:patch list [-a]
:patch ls [-a]
Lists the current project with the tracked patch sets.
-a: Lists all projects.
:patch apply [-c <cmd>] [-w <commit-ish>] <tag>
Applies the selected message(s) to the repository of the current project. It uses the
:pipe command for this and keeps track of the applied patch.
Completions for the <tag> are available based on the subject lines of the selected or
marked messages.
-c <cmd>: Apply patches with the provided <cmd>. Any occurence of '%r' in the command
string will be replaced with the root directory of the current project. Note that this
approach is not recommended in general and should only be used for very specific
purposes, i.e. when a maintainer is applying a patch set via a separate script to deal
with git trailers.
aerc will propose completions for the <tag> based on the subject lines of the selected
or marked messages.
Example:
:patch apply -c "git -C %r am -3" fix_v2
-w <commit-ish>: Create a linked worktree for the current project at <commit-ish> and
apply the patches to the linked worktree. A new project is created to store the
worktree information. When this project is deleted, the worktree will be deleted as
well.
Example:
:patch apply -w origin/master fix_v2
:patch drop <tag>
Drops the patch <tag> from the repository.
:patch rebase [<commit-ish>]
Rebases the patch data on commit <commit-ish>.
If the <commit-ish> is omitted, aerc will use the base commit of the current project
for the rebase.
:patch find [-f] <commit-hash>
Searches the messages in the current folder of the current account for the message
associated with this commit hash based on the subject line.
If a Message-ID is linked to a commit (i.e. when :patch apply was used) then find will
first perform a search for the Message-ID.
-f: Filter the message list instead of just showing the search results. Only effective
when search for Message-ID was not successful.
:patch cd
Changes the working directory to the root directory of the current project.
:patch term [<cmd>]
Opens a shell (or runs <cmd>) in the working directory of the current project.
:patch switch <project>
Switches the context to <project>.
:patch unlink [<project>]
Deletes all patch tracking data for <project> and unlinks it from a repository. If no
project is provided, the current project is deleted.
:patch
Root command for path management. Use it to run the sub-commands.
GETTING STARTED
Make sure you have an initialized project (see :patch init).
Now, there are two ways to get patches under the local patch management system:
• Apply patches with the :patch apply command. This will automatically create a new tag
for the applied commits.
• Use :patch rebase. If there are some existing local patches in the commit history that
should be managed by aerc, you can run :patch rebase <commit-ish> and set the <commit-
ish> to the commit before the first patch that you want to include. For a git
repository which has an upstream called origin, you would run :patch rebase
origin/master.
EXAMPLE
The following example demonstrates how to manage the local patch sets.
First, a project needs to be initialized. This is done by changing into the working
directory where the project's repository is located. For this example, let's assume we
have a project called bar in the directory /home/user/foo/bar.
:cd /home/user/foo/bar
and then creating a new project with
:patch init
If no name is provided to :patch init, aerc will use the last element of the working
directory path (here: bar).
Now the patch tracking is ready for action. Go to the message list, mark a patch series
and apply it:
:patch apply fix_v2
This will apply the selected patch set and assigns the fix_v2 tag to those commits. The
tag helps to keep the commits grouped together, and will be helpful when we want to drop
this exact patch set at a later point.
With :patch list you can verify that the patch set was correctly applied.
If there is a change in the underlying repository (e.g. by rebasing to upstream), the
hashes of the applied local commits can change. :patch list can detect such a change and
will then propose to rebase the internal data. To do this, run
:patch rebase
This will open an editor where you can adjust the correct tags again. You could also
change the rebase point by providing an optional argument (e.g. a commit hash, or even
HEAD~3 or origin/master, etc.).
To drop a patch set, use the tag that was assigned during applying:
:patch drop fix_v2
And to delete the project data in aerc:
:patch unlink bar
SUPPORTED REVISION CONTROL SYSTEMS
The supported revision control systems are currently: git.
SEE ALSO
aerc(1)
AUTHORS
Originally created by Drew DeVault and maintained by Robin Jarry who is assisted by other
open source contributors. For more information about aerc development, see
https://sr.ht/~rjarry/aerc/.
2024-07-30 AERC-PATCH(7)