[PATCH] Document from line in patch format

[Paul Jackson]

Document more details of patch format such as the "from" line
used to specify the patch author, and provide more references
for patch guidelines.

Signed-off-by: Paul Jackson <pj@xxxxxxx>

Index: 2.6.14-rc2-mm2/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
===================================================================
--- 2.6.14-rc2-mm2.orig/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
+++ 2.6.14-rc2-mm2/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
@@ -301,8 +301,47 @@ now, but you can do this to mark interna
 point out some special detail about the sign-off. 
 
 
+12) The canonical patch format
 
-12) More references for submitting patches
+The canonical patch subject line is:
+
+    Subject: [PATCH 001/123] [<area>:] <explanation>
+
+The canonical patch message body contains the following:
+
+    The first line of the body contains a "from" line specifying
+    the author of the patch:
+
+        From: Original Author <author@xxxxxxxxx>
+
+    If the "from" line is missing, then the author of the patch will
+    be recorded in the source code revision history as whomever is
+    listed in the last "Signed-off-by:" line in the message when Linus
+    receives it.
+
+    The "from" line is followed by an empty line and then the body
+    of the explanation.
+
+    After the body of the explanation comes the "Signed-off-by:"
+    lines, and then a simple "---" line, and below that comes the
+    diffstat of the patch and then the patch itself.  The "---" line
+    and diffstat are optional, but helpful to readers of non-trivial
+    patches.
+
+The Subject line format makes it very easy to sort the emails
+alphabetically by subject line - pretty much any email reader will
+support that - since because the sequence number is zero-padded,
+the numerical and alphabetic sort is the same.
+
+See further details on how to phrase the "<explanation>" in
+the "Subject:" line in Andrew Morton's "The perfect patch",
+referenced below.
+
+See more details on the proper patch format in the following
+references.
+
+
+13) More references for submitting patches
 
 Andrew Morton, "The perfect patch" (tpp).
   <http://www.zip.com.au/~akpm/linux/patches/stuff/tpp.txt>
@@ -310,6 +349,14 @@ Andrew Morton, "The perfect patch" (tpp)
 Jeff Garzik, "Linux kernel patch submission format."
   <http://linux.yyz.us/patch-format.html>
 
+Jeff Garzik, "How to piss off a kernel subsystem maintainer"
+  <http://www.kroah.com/log/2005/03/31/>
+
+Kernel Documentation/CodingStyle
+  <http://lxr.linux.no/source/Documentation/CodingStyle>
+
+Linus Torvald's mail on the canonical patch format:
+  <http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/4/7/183>
 
 
 -----------------------------------

-- 
                          I won't rest till it's the best ...
                          Programmer, Linux Scalability
                          Paul Jackson <pj@xxxxxxx> 1.650.933.1373
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