Buildroot Development Checklist

Because I always forget, here’s a reminder to myself on how to use git format-patch and git send-email from the command line.

The following example is for contributing to the [Buildroot Project][1], but the process is much the same for other mailing list-based projects.

Make your changes on an up-to-date branch from Buildroot master

 git checkout -b package/foobar
 git fetch --all --tags
 git rebase origin/master

Use logical commits; upgrade package as one, changing/extending behavior as another, etc.
Use commit messages to record why changes are made. The first line is usally a (very) brief summary referencing the sub-system:
```
 package/foobar: bump version to v1.2.3

 Signed-off-by: Your Name <your.name@example.com>
```
Verify formatting of package files; .in, .mk, etc.
```
 ./utils/check-package package/foobar/*
```
If you change or add a new package, verify you don’t introduce any recursive dependencies, or other nasty surprises. Remember, the build systems includes all .mk files into one big Makefile, so any changes you make are seen by all other packages.
```
 make menuconfig         # complains if you have recursive deps.
 make <pkg>-rebuild      # check output of build
```
Test your package/change with a set of cross-compilation toolchains. The .config file is a menuconfig snippet enabling the package to test:
```
 ./utils/test-pkg -c foobar.config -p foobar
```
Output goes in ~/br-test-pkg/, check all logs. Some toolchains can help you track down issues with your package you won’t see elsewhere.
Format your patches, with the optional --cover-letter, very useful to explain a series of patches:
```
 git format-patch --cover-letter -M -n -s -o mail origin/master
```
Figure out DEVELOPERS to Cc in your correspondence to the mailing list:
```
 ./utils/get-developers mail/*
```
At the very least, the following should be output:
```
 git send-email --to buildroot@buildroot.org
```
Send the email(s) by copy-pasting the output and appending mail/*
```
 git send-email --to buildroot@buildroot.org mail/*
```
Git now adds a Cc to you and offers you one last chance to proofread the contents (remember the email headers!) before you send.

Note: if you haven’t set up your ~/.gitconfig yet for sending email, please see https://git-scm.com/docs/git-send-email for help.