[llvm-dev] Proposing a llvm-patch helper script in-tree to create/apply patches without arc

[Martin Storsjö via llvm-dev]

On Tue, 21 Jan 2020, David Tellenbach via llvm-dev wrote:

> The downsides of providing a custom script are obvious: Someone has to 
> write it and someone has to maintain it. Moreover I don't think that 
> arcanist is so complicated that a custom script would be a huge 
> improvement (you'd have to read the documentation of the new tool 
> anyway).

To me, one upside would be if it simply would do less; if I want to apply 
a patch using arcanist, it will automatically change branches to apply the 
patch on the right base revision (or maybe just fetch the very latest 
master and apply it on top of that). As the llvm-project repo is fairly 
large, rebuilds are costly, and updating the git tree to a new version is 
something I want to schedule myself, not have a tool do for me behind my 
back when I want to try out a patch (that most probably would work just 
fine on my couple-days-old tree).

I would much prefer a tool that simply tries to apply the change on the 
current branch that I happen to have checked out at the moment - 
essentially "git am". I've tried to look for arcanist flags to achieve 
this, but didn't find any when I looked.

So a simple standalone tool (without the php dependency) that does less 
automatic stuff and just downloads and applies the patch would be great to 
me. Bonus points if it would set the git author field properly based on 
the patch author's phabricator user name/mail address.

// Martin