How do you squash commits into one patch with git format-patch?

Question

I\'ve got eight commits on a branch that I\'d like to email to some people who aren\'t git enlightened, yet. So far, everything I do either gives me 8 patch files, or start

Answer 1

Easiest way is to use git diff, and add in git log if you want the combined commit message that the squash method would output. For example, to create the patch between commit abcd and 1234:

git diff abcd..1234 > patch.diff
git log abcd..1234 > patchmsg.txt

Then when applying the patch:

git apply patch.diff
git add -A
git reset patch.diff patchmsg.txt
git commit -F patchmsg.txt

Don't forget the --binary argument to git diff when dealing with non-text files, e.g. images or videos.

Answer 2

Based on Adam Alexander's answer:

git checkout newlines
## must be rebased to master
git checkout -b temporary
# squash the commits
git rebase -i master
git format-patch master