@@ -16,21 +16,32 @@ SYNOPSIS
1616 [--in-reply-to=Message-Id] [--suffix=.<sfx>]
1717 [--ignore-if-in-upstream]
1818 [--subject-prefix=Subject-Prefix]
19- <since>[..<until> ]
19+ [ <since> | <revision range> ]
2020
2121DESCRIPTION
2222-----------
2323
24- Prepare each commit between <since> and <until> with its patch in
24+ Prepare each commit with its patch in
2525one file per commit, formatted to resemble UNIX mailbox format.
26- If ..<until> is not specified, the head of the current working
27- tree is implied. For a more complete list of ways to spell
28- <since> and <until>, see "SPECIFYING REVISIONS" section in
29- gitlink:git-rev-parse[1].
30-
3126The output of this command is convenient for e-mail submission or
3227for use with gitlink:git-am[1].
3328
29+ There are two ways to specify which commits to operate on.
30+
31+ 1. A single commit, <since>, specifies that the commits leading
32+ to the tip of the current branch that are not in the history
33+ that leads to the <since> to be output.
34+
35+ 2. Generic <revision range> expression (see "SPECIFYING
36+ REVISIONS" section in gitlink:git-rev-parse[1]) means the
37+ commits in the specified range. A single commit, when
38+ interpreted as a <revision range> expression, means
39+ "everything that leads to that commit", but that is taken as
40+ the special case above. If you want to format everything
41+ since project inception to one commit, say "git format-patch
42+ \--root <that-commit>", as showing the root commit as patch
43+ requires \--root option anyway.
44+
3445By default, each output file is numbered sequentially from 1, and uses the
3546first line of the commit message (massaged for pathname safety) as
3647the filename. With the --numbered-files option, the output file names
@@ -153,6 +164,10 @@ git-format-patch origin::
153164 not in the origin branch. For each commit a separate file
154165 is created in the current directory.
155166
167+ git-format-patch \--root origin::
168+ Extract all commits which that leads to 'origin' since the
169+ inception of the project.
170+
156171git-format-patch -M -B origin::
157172 The same as the previous one. Additionally, it detects
158173 and handles renames and complete rewrites intelligently to
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