Re: [GSoC14][RFC] Is there any interest in adding a port of checkpatch.pl to contrib/?

> It seems to me that the topic of adding the checkpatch.pl script to
> Git's source tree has cropped up several times in the past, as
> recently as a couple of days ago: $gmane/243607.
>
> It should be noted that its usage for its sake has been discouraged by
> Junio Hamano in $gmane/205998.

> Also, its use is somewhat controversial
> and has led to flames and even a public fork.
>
> Despite this, I think that git might benefit from a port of
> checkpatch.pl. In fact, even Junio had admitted to use part of its
> features later in $gmane/205998.
>
> We could simply use linux's script/checkpatch.pl, but I think a port
> is needed for these reasons:
>
> 1. Git style guidelines are somewhat different and less strict than
> their Linux equivalents.

> 2. Several patch threads bounce back and forth because of style fixes.
> A checkpatch script added as a hook could help reduce these and use
> more efficiently our time.
> 3. As far as I can tell, checkpatch needs to be run from the root
> folder of a linux repository clone. Cloning several hundred MBs for a
> single perl script looks a little foolish to me.

> So, is there any interest in adding a port of checkpatch.pl to
> contrib/? I might work on this as part of GSoC. I still haven't
> submitted my application about git bisect (life got in the way!), but
> Michael Heggarty remarked in $gmane/242703 that my original idea had
> too little meat in it to constitute a good GSoC proposal.
>
> Cheers,
> Jacopo Notarstefano