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How to elegantly maintain a patched dwm in Archlinux

Repository structure

Like many dwm users, I like to apply a couple patches from dwm.suckless.org/patches to the stock dwm. I also have my own settings and parameters that I like. To make it easy to keep these patches and settings up-to-date with the current version or master branch of dwm, each patch has its own branch. I treat my personal settings as an additional branch. For example, if the patch branches are based on a current version tagged 6.0, then the patchset on top of this will be called qguv-6.0:

     ,-- better-borders --,
    /                      \
6.0 ---- settings ---------- qguv-6.0
    \                      /
     '-- gaps ------------'

Let's say upstream tags a new version 6.1. To update the patchset to a new version, start by rebasing each branch to the new tip. We'll be going from this:

      ,--- 6.1
     /
    /  ,-- better-borders --,
   /  /                      \
6.0 ------ settings ---------- qguv-6.0
    \                        /
     '---- gaps ------------'

to this:

      ,--- qguv-6.0
     /
    /        ,-- better-borders
   /        /
6.0 --- 6.1 ---- settings
            \
             '-- gaps

Now make a merge commit merging all the patch branches and tag the result qguv-6.1:

      ,--- qguv-6.0
     /
    /        ,-- better-borders --,
   /        /                      \
6.0 --- 6.1 ---- settings ---------- qguv-6.1
            \                      /
             '-- gaps ------------'

Example: updating to new tagged version

Here is the above example (updating from 6.0 to 6.1) in long form. Assume the patchset branch is currently pointing to the same commit as the 6.0 tag.

git fetch --tags upstream

git checkout better-borders
git rebase 6.1
# fix problems etc.

git checkout gaps
git rebase 6.1

git checkout settings
git rebase 6.1

git checkout patchset
git merge --ff-only settings
git merge better-borders
git merge gaps

git tag -m "6.1 with qguv's patchset" qguv-6.1

Example: updating to new master

Even if upstream hasn't pushed out a new official version, we can still update to the latest master. The steps are very similar. Again, we assume that patchset is the tip where all the patch branches were last merged.

git fetch --tags upstream master

git checkout better-borders
git rebase upstream/master
# fix problems etc.

git checkout gaps
git rebase upstream/master

git checkout settings
git rebase upstream/master

# point patchset to the current settings commit
git checkout patchset
git reset --hard settings

# merge and update
git merge better-borders
git merge gaps

Using makepkg

Grab the PKGBUILD.

git clone aur.archlinux.org/dwm-qguv-git

Make and install.

makepkg -firs