file, that is fine, but we do prefer svn diffs against the top level

(where setup.py lives) since it is nice to have a consistent way to

apply them.

If you are posting a patch to fix a code bug, please explain your

patch in words -- what was broken before and how you fixed it. Also,

even if your patch is particularly simple, just a few lines or a

single function replacement, we encourage people to submit svn diffs

against HEAD or the branch they are patching. It just makes life

simpler for us, since we (fortunately) get a lot of contributions, and

want to receive them in a standard format. If possible, for any

non-trivial change, please include a complete, free-standing example

that the developers can run unmodified which shows the undesired

behavior pre-patch and the desired behavior post-patch, with a clear

verbal description of what to look for. The original developer may

have written the function you are working on years ago, and may no

longer be with the project, so it is quite possible you are the world

expert on the code you are patching and we want to hear as much detail

as you can offer.

When emailing your patch and examples, feel free to paste any code

into the text of the message, indeed we encourage it, but also attach

the patches and examples since many email clients screw up the

formatting of plain text, and we spend lots of needless time trying to

reformat the code to make it usable.