How to create the " [PATCH 0/5]" first email?

The git format-patch allows numbered patches to be created, however I'm not sure how folk generate the initial "0/n" patch. Which of the various options should I be using?

Also, being on windows, the various 'mbox' and 'MUA' discussions are new to me, so the format-patch step where :-

"Typically it will be placed in a MUA’s drafts folder, edited to add timely commentary that should not go in the changelog after the three dashes, and then sent as a message whose body, in our example, starts with "arch/arm config files were…". On the receiving end, readers can save interesting patches in a UNIX mailbox and apply them with git-am(1)."

hides a multitude of implicit knowledge steps. Is there an extended description of what that would mean from a platform independent viewpoint? e.g. if the patches are separte files and an mbox is one consolidated file, how to get from one to the other so that 'it' can be sent by 'git send-mail'.

I'm also missing an understanding of the preparation stage where one tries to tidy up the various commit messages becaue they weren't explicit, specfic nor concise enough, so I suspect that there is an implicit `git format-patch` <-> `git am` loop of sharpening the mbox patches before submission to the list that I'm missing. Has this described somewhere?

Philip Oakley