From: Linus Torvalds Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2011 21:58:05 +0000 (-0700) Subject: Add some information about properly formatted commit messages X-Git-Url: http://git.tdb.fi/?p=ext%2Fsubsurface.git;a=commitdiff_plain;h=b6590150d68df528efd40c889ba6eea476b39873 Add some information about properly formatted commit messages It does seem like a lot of github users are not used to good commit message rules, and may never have used git for a project that actually cares about good logs and nice summary lines. Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds --- diff --git a/README b/README index 19ddae2..a9eb649 100644 --- a/README +++ b/README @@ -49,3 +49,24 @@ the right to pass it on as an open source patch. See: http://gerrit.googlecode.com/svn/documentation/2.0/user-signedoffby.html +Also, please write good git commit messages. A good commit message +looks like this: + + header line: explaining the commit in one line + + Body of commit message is a few lines of text, explaining things + in more detail, possibly giving some background about the issue + being fixed, etc etc. + + The body of the commit message can be several paragrahps, and + please do proper word-wrap and keep columns shorter than about + 74 characters or so. That way "git log" will show things + nicely even when it's indented. + + Reported-by: whoever-reported-it + Signed-off-by: Your Name + +where that header line really should be meaningful, and really should be +just one line. That header line is what is shown by tools like gitk and +shortlog, and should summarize the change in one readable line of text, +independently of the longer explanation.