1 =============================
2 Code Reviews with Phabricator
3 =============================
8 If you prefer to use a web user interface for code reviews, you can now submit
9 your patches for Clang and LLVM at `LLVM's Phabricator`_ instance.
11 While Phabricator is a useful tool for some, the relevant -commits mailing list
12 is the system of record for all LLVM code review. The mailing list should be
13 added as a subscriber on all reviews, and Phabricator users should be prepared
14 to respond to free-form comments in mail sent to the commits list.
19 To get started with Phabricator, navigate to `http://reviews.llvm.org`_ and
20 click the power icon in the top right. You can register with a GitHub account,
21 a Google account, or you can create your own profile.
23 Make *sure* that the email address registered with Phabricator is subscribed
24 to the relevant -commits mailing list. If you are not subscribed to the commit
25 list, all mail sent by Phabricator on your behalf will be held for moderation.
27 Note that if you use your Subversion user name as Phabricator user name,
28 Phabricator will automatically connect your submits to your Phabricator user in
29 the `Code Repository Browser`_.
31 Requesting a review via the command line
32 ----------------------------------------
34 Phabricator has a tool called *Arcanist* to upload patches from
35 the command line. To get you set up, follow the
36 `Arcanist Quick Start`_ instructions.
38 You can learn more about how to use arc to interact with
39 Phabricator in the `Arcanist User Guide`_.
41 Requesting a review via the web interface
42 -----------------------------------------
44 The tool to create and review patches in Phabricator is called
47 Note that you can upload patches created through various diff tools,
48 including git and svn. To make reviews easier, please always include
49 **as much context as possible** with your diff! Don't worry, Phabricator
50 will automatically send a diff with a smaller context in the review
51 email, but having the full file in the web interface will help the
52 reviewer understand your code.
54 To get a full diff, use one of the following commands (or just use Arcanist
55 to upload your patch):
57 * ``git show HEAD -U999999 > mypatch.patch``
58 * ``git format-patch -U999999 @{u}``
59 * ``svn diff --diff-cmd=diff -x -U999999``
61 To upload a new patch:
63 * Click *Differential*.
64 * Click *+ Create Diff*.
65 * Paste the text diff or browse to the patch file. Click *Create Diff*.
66 * Leave the Repository field blank.
67 * Leave the drop down on *Create a new Revision...* and click *Continue*.
68 * Enter a descriptive title and summary. The title and summary are usually
69 in the form of a :ref:`commit message <commit messages>`.
70 * Add reviewers (see below for advice) and subscribe mailing
71 lists that you want to be included in the review. If your patch is
72 for LLVM, add llvm-commits as a Subscriber; if your patch is for Clang,
74 * Leave the Repository and Project fields blank.
77 To submit an updated patch:
79 * Click *Differential*.
80 * Click *+ Create Diff*.
81 * Paste the updated diff or browse to the updated patch file. Click *Create Diff*.
82 * Select the review you want to from the *Attach To* dropdown and click
84 * Leave the Repository and Project fields blank.
85 * Add comments about the changes in the new diff. Click *Save*.
87 Choosing reviewers: You typically pick one or two people as initial reviewers.
88 This choice is not crucial, because you are merely suggesting and not requiring
89 them to participate. Many people will see the email notification on cfe-commits
90 or llvm-commits, and if the subject line suggests the patch is something they
91 should look at, they will.
93 Here are a couple of ways to pick the initial reviewer(s):
95 * Use ``svn blame`` and the commit log to find names of people who have
96 recently modified the same area of code that you are modifying.
97 * Look in CODE_OWNERS.TXT to see who might be responsible for that area.
98 * If you've discussed the change on a dev list, the people who participated
99 might be appropriate reviewers.
101 Even if you think the code owner is the busiest person in the world, it's still
102 okay to put them as a reviewer. Being the code owner means they have accepted
103 responsibility for making sure the review happens.
105 Reviewing code with Phabricator
106 -------------------------------
108 Phabricator allows you to add inline comments as well as overall comments
109 to a revision. To add an inline comment, select the lines of code you want
110 to comment on by clicking and dragging the line numbers in the diff pane.
111 When you have added all your comments, scroll to the bottom of the page and
112 click the Submit button.
114 You can add overall comments in the text box at the bottom of the page.
115 When you're done, click the Submit button.
117 Phabricator has many useful features, for example allowing you to select
118 diffs between different versions of the patch as it was reviewed in the
119 *Revision Update History*. Most features are self descriptive - explore, and
120 if you have a question, drop by on #llvm in IRC to get help.
122 Note that as e-mail is the system of reference for code reviews, and some
123 people prefer it over a web interface, we do not generate automated mail
124 when a review changes state, for example by clicking "Accept Revision" in
125 the web interface. Thus, please type LGTM into the comment box to accept
126 a change from Phabricator.
131 Once a patch has been reviewed and approved on Phabricator it can then be
132 committed to trunk. If you do not have commit access, someone has to
133 commit the change for you (with attribution). It is sufficient to add
134 a comment to the approved review indicating you cannot commit the patch
135 yourself. If you have commit access, there are multiple workflows to commit the
136 change. Whichever method you follow it is recommended that your commit message
141 Differential Revision: <URL>
143 where ``<URL>`` is the URL for the code review, starting with
144 ``http://reviews.llvm.org/``.
146 This allows people reading the version history to see the review for
147 context. This also allows Phabricator to detect the commit, close the
148 review, and add a link from the review to the commit.
150 Note that if you use the Arcanist tool the ``Differential Revision`` line will
151 be added automatically. If you don't want to use Arcanist, you can add the
152 ``Differential Revision`` line (as the last line) to the commit message
155 Using the Arcanist tool can simplify the process of committing reviewed code
156 as it will retrieve reviewers, the ``Differential Revision``, etc from the review
157 and place it in the commit message. Several methods of using Arcanist to commit
158 code are given below. If you do not wish to use Arcanist then simply commit
159 the reviewed patch as you would normally.
161 Note that if you commit the change without using Arcanist and forget to add the
162 ``Differential Revision`` line to your commit message then it is recommended
163 that you close the review manually. In the web UI, under "Leap Into Action" put
164 the SVN revision number in the Comment, set the Action to "Close Revision" and
165 click Submit. Note the review must have been Accepted first.
167 Subversion and Arcanist
168 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
170 On a clean Subversion working copy run the following (where ``<Revision>`` is
171 the Phabricator review number):
175 arc patch D<Revision>
176 arc commit --revision D<Revision>
178 The first command will take the latest version of the reviewed patch and apply it to the working
179 copy. The second command will commit this revision to trunk.
184 This presumes that the git repository has been configured as described in :ref:`developers-work-with-git-svn`.
186 On a clean Git repository on an up to date ``master`` branch run the
187 following (where ``<Revision>`` is the Phabricator review number):
191 arc patch D<Revision>
194 This will create a new branch called ``arcpatch-D<Revision>`` based on the
195 current ``master`` and will create a commit corresponding to ``D<Revision>`` with a
196 commit message derived from information in the Phabricator review.
198 Check you are happy with the commit message and amend it if necessary. Now switch to
199 the ``master`` branch and add the new commit to it and commit it to trunk. This
200 can be done by running the following:
205 git merge --ff-only arcpatch-D<Revision>
213 If you decide you should not commit the patch, you should explicitly abandon
214 the review so that reviewers don't think it is still open. In the web UI,
215 scroll to the bottom of the page where normally you would enter an overall
216 comment. In the drop-down Action list, which defaults to "Comment," you should
217 select "Abandon Revision" and then enter a comment explaining why. Click the
218 Submit button to finish closing the review.
223 Please let us know whether you like it and what could be improved! We're still
224 working on setting up a bug tracker, but you can email klimek-at-google-dot-com
225 and chandlerc-at-gmail-dot-com and CC the llvm-dev mailing list with questions
226 until then. We also could use help implementing improvements. This sadly is
227 really painful and hard because the Phabricator codebase is in PHP and not as
228 testable as you might like. However, we've put exactly what we're deploying up
229 on an `llvm-reviews GitHub project`_ where folks can hack on it and post pull
230 requests. We're looking into what the right long-term hosting for this is, but
231 note that it is a derivative of an existing open source project, and so not
232 trivially a good fit for an official LLVM project.
234 .. _LLVM's Phabricator: http://reviews.llvm.org
235 .. _`http://reviews.llvm.org`: http://reviews.llvm.org
236 .. _Code Repository Browser: http://reviews.llvm.org/diffusion/
237 .. _Arcanist Quick Start: https://secure.phabricator.com/book/phabricator/article/arcanist_quick_start/
238 .. _Arcanist User Guide: https://secure.phabricator.com/book/phabricator/article/arcanist/
239 .. _llvm-reviews GitHub project: https://github.com/r4nt/llvm-reviews/