backport remaining patches

from @rbtcollins : Biggest outstanding thing is to fixup the back port automation now python is in git. It may be trivial in fact.

This lives in /tools

[tirkarthi]

What specifically do you refer to as “patches”? The commits from upstream? If yes, is it important to preserve its commit history?

IMO it’s good to have each commit from upstream land here instead of a single commit. If there is a regression in the backport not covered in tests then having separate commits would help in bisecting.

[pbasista]

Do I understand correctly that the backporting is done manually?

If yes, then why not simply generate patch from the upstream git repository, e.g. by running:

$ git diff previous_patch_revision..v3.7.2 -- Lib/unittest/ > unittest.patch

And then use the existing script:

$ ./tools/applypatch-transform unittest.patch

I have tried it now and it seems to mostly work. I am not sure which version is the previous_patch_revision, so I have used v3.7.0. The result was a patch which applied mostly cleanly, except for a few hunks that need manual resolving.