To reference previous commits people used to put just the abbreviated SHA-1 into commit messages. This is what has evolved as a more stable format for referencing commits. So lets document it for everyone to lookup when needed. Signed-off-by: Heiko Voigt <hvoigt@xxxxxxxxxx> --- On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 01:16:36PM +0200, Heiko Voigt wrote: > On Tue, Jul 26, 2016 at 10:22:07AM -0700, Stefan Beller wrote: > > Usually we refer to the commit by a triple of "abbrev. sha1 (date, subject). > > See d201a1ecd (2015-05-21, test_bitmap_walk: free bitmap with bitmap_free) > > for an example. Or ce41720ca (2015-04-02, blame, log: format usage strings > > similarly to those in documentation). > > > > Apparently we put the subject first and then the date. I always did it > > the other way > > round, to there is no strict coding guide line, though it helps a lot to have an > > understanding for a) how long are we in the "broken" state already as well as > > b) what was the rationale for introducing it. > > Ah ok did not know about this format. Will change that. I also will > follow-up with a patch to document this in SubmittingPatches so we can > point others to that... Here we go. Made this a seperate patch, since it is not really connected to the submodule-config-fix series. Cheers Heiko Documentation/SubmittingPatches | 5 +++++ 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+) diff --git a/Documentation/SubmittingPatches b/Documentation/SubmittingPatches index e8ad978..500230c 100644 --- a/Documentation/SubmittingPatches +++ b/Documentation/SubmittingPatches @@ -121,6 +121,11 @@ its behaviour. Try to make sure your explanation can be understood without external resources. Instead of giving a URL to a mailing list archive, summarize the relevant points of the discussion. +If you want to reference a previous commit in the history of a stable +branch use the format "abbreviated sha1 (subject, date)". So for example +like this: "Commit f86a374 (pack-bitmap.c: fix a memleak, 2015-03-30) +noticed [...]". + (3) Generate your patch using Git tools out of your commits. -- 2.0.2.832.g083c931 -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html