The devguide (http://docs.python.org/devguide/patch.html) recommends the use of the mercurial “mq” feature to work with patches and that works IMHO very well. It also states that before sending the patch a sanity check should be done ('devguide: Preparation and Generation'). At this stage, if one has the patch as tip (hg qapplied), the advice to run “pathcheck” doesn't help as no changes are noticed.

The message is:
-----------------------------------------------
Modules/Setup.dist is newer than Modules/Setup;
check to make sure you have all the updates you
need in your Modules/Setup file.
Usually, copying Modules/Setup.dist to Modules/Setup will work.
-----------------------------------------------
./python ./Tools/scripts/patchcheck.py
Getting the list of files that have been added/changed ... 0 files
Fixing whitespace ... 0 files
Fixing C file whitespace ... 0 files
Fixing docs whitespace ... 0 files
Docs modified ... NO
Misc/ACKS updated ... NO
Misc/NEWS updated ... NO
The tool should check if some mq patches are applied (from “normal” tip to “mqtip” and make it's checks there.

Thanks in advance !

Francis