umpf is a tool that helps you manage git branches and combine them into a software release. It can create tags and export the changes as a patch stack. umpf was originally designed for the Linux kernel but it can be used for other projects as well.
There are several reasons why commits are split into multiple branches:
- Some but not all features may be shared among multiple projects. Separate branches make it possible to avoid unnecessary changes to a specific release.
- A set of commits are developed for upstream. Keeping the commits on a separate branch makes further development and upstreaming easier.
- A branch may be created from a patch series collected from a mailing list. Keeping it separate makes it easier to update to a new version.
So working with multiple branches makes patch handling and further development easier. But combining those branches to a release can be tedious and error prone.
This is where umpf comes in. It automates the process of creating releases. It creates tags in a reproducible way. And it can create patch series from those tags.
umpf is a bash script, so no installation is necessary. It just needs a few command line tools such as sed, grep and of course git.
To enable bash completion, make sure umpf is in your $PATH, then:
$ mkdir -p ~/.local/share/bash-completion/completions $ ln -s /path/to/umpf/bash_completion ~/.local/share/bash-completion/completions/umpf
umpf -h gives a basic description of the command line arguments.
More details about umpf can be found in the documentation.
To contribute to umpf please prepare a pull request on Github. To make is possible to include your modifications it's required that your code additions are licensed under the same terms as umpf itself. So you are required to agree to the following document:
Developer's Certificate of Origin 1.1
By making a contribution to this project, I certify that:
- The contribution was created in whole or in part by me and I have the right to submit it under the open source license indicated in the file; or
- The contribution is based upon previous work that, to the best of my knowledge, is covered under an appropriate open source license and I have the right under that license to submit that work with modifications, whether created in whole or in part by me, under the same open source license (unless I am permitted to submit under a different license), as indicated in the file; or
- The contribution was provided directly to me by some other person who certified (a), (b) or (c) and I have not modified it.
- I understand and agree that this project and the contribution are public and that a record of the contribution (including all personal information I submit with it, including my sign-off) is maintained indefinitely and may be redistributed consistent with this project or the open source license(s) involved.
Your agreement is expressed by adding a sign-off line to each of your
commits (e.g. using git commit -s) looking as follows:
Signed-off-by: Random J Developer <random@developer.example.org>
with your identity and email address matching the commit meta data.