To patch a file means to modify it, with the connotation
that the modification is generally small.
The usage comes from the general English usage where a patch
is a small modification (to a piece of cloth, for example).
When it comes to files, a patch is not always a repair.
A patch is a series of instructions that describe how to modify
a file or a set of files.
In the unix world, a patch is usually the output of the diff command,
describing changes in a text file. A patch in this sense describes
the modifications in terms of adding, removing or modifying lines
in the files. The patch utility applies these instructions to modify
a file or set of files.
It tries to be smart about applying multiple patches to the same file,
as the first patch could cause changes that prevent the second one
from being applies because the file is no longer in the expected state.
Because diff and patch strongly base their operation on lines,
they are not well-suited to binary files.
patch file creation and how to patch ?
before doing this, please backup your source code, patch wrongly
will screwup your source code.
how to create patch file?
Patch file is a readable file that created by diff with -c
(context output format).
It doesn’t matter and if you wanna know more, man diff.
To patch the entire folder of source codes(as usually people do)
I do as bellow:
Assume Original source code at folder Tb01, and latest source
code at folder Tb02. And there have multiple sub directories at
Tb01 and Tb02 too.
====> diff -crB Tb01 Tb02 > Tb02.patch
-c context, -r recursive (multiple levels dir), -B is to ignore
Blank Lines.
put -B because blank lines is really useless for patching,
sometimes I need to manually read the patch file to track the changes, \
without -B is really headache.
How to patch?
First of all, please do a dry-run before really patch it.
Bare in mind, patch will be working very specifically.
Let say the version 3 Tb03.patch is use to patch from Tb02,
if you apply patch on Tb01, sometimes it will corrupt your source code.
So, to make sure it works, do a dry run.
Dry-run means a fake-test, do it at the directory of the source code
targeted to patch.
Doing dry-run like this:
====> patch --dry-run -p1 -i Tb02.patch
The success output looks like this:
patching file TbApi.cpp
patching file TbApi.h
patching file TbCard.cpp
...
The failure ouptut looks like this:
patching file TbCard.cpp
Hunk #2 FAILED at 585.
1 out of 2 hunks FAILED -- saving rejects to file TbCard.cpp.rej
patching file TbCard.h
Hunk #1 FAILED at 57.
Hunk #2 FAILED at 77.
Hunk #3 succeeded at 83 with fuzz 1 (offset -21 lines).
....
At last, if the dry-run is giving good result,
do this and enjoy the compilation.
====> patch -p1 -i Tb02.patch
Second, if there were files in Tb02 that did not exist in Tb01 and
you want them included in the patch, give diff the -N option:
diff -crBN Tb01 Tb02 > Tb02.patch
Lastly, I’d note that diff and patch really only work with text files.
It can’t deal with jpegs, pdfs, or other binary objects.
This can be a bit of a pain for web and GUI developers.
that the modification is generally small.
The usage comes from the general English usage where a patch
is a small modification (to a piece of cloth, for example).
When it comes to files, a patch is not always a repair.
A patch is a series of instructions that describe how to modify
a file or a set of files.
In the unix world, a patch is usually the output of the diff command,
describing changes in a text file. A patch in this sense describes
the modifications in terms of adding, removing or modifying lines
in the files. The patch utility applies these instructions to modify
a file or set of files.
It tries to be smart about applying multiple patches to the same file,
as the first patch could cause changes that prevent the second one
from being applies because the file is no longer in the expected state.
Because diff and patch strongly base their operation on lines,
they are not well-suited to binary files.
patch file creation and how to patch ?
before doing this, please backup your source code, patch wrongly
will screwup your source code.
how to create patch file?
Patch file is a readable file that created by diff with -c
(context output format).
It doesn’t matter and if you wanna know more, man diff.
To patch the entire folder of source codes(as usually people do)
I do as bellow:
Assume Original source code at folder Tb01, and latest source
code at folder Tb02. And there have multiple sub directories at
Tb01 and Tb02 too.
====> diff -crB Tb01 Tb02 > Tb02.patch
-c context, -r recursive (multiple levels dir), -B is to ignore
Blank Lines.
put -B because blank lines is really useless for patching,
sometimes I need to manually read the patch file to track the changes, \
without -B is really headache.
How to patch?
First of all, please do a dry-run before really patch it.
Bare in mind, patch will be working very specifically.
Let say the version 3 Tb03.patch is use to patch from Tb02,
if you apply patch on Tb01, sometimes it will corrupt your source code.
So, to make sure it works, do a dry run.
Dry-run means a fake-test, do it at the directory of the source code
targeted to patch.
Doing dry-run like this:
====> patch --dry-run -p1 -i Tb02.patch
The success output looks like this:
patching file TbApi.cpp
patching file TbApi.h
patching file TbCard.cpp
...
The failure ouptut looks like this:
patching file TbCard.cpp
Hunk #2 FAILED at 585.
1 out of 2 hunks FAILED -- saving rejects to file TbCard.cpp.rej
patching file TbCard.h
Hunk #1 FAILED at 57.
Hunk #2 FAILED at 77.
Hunk #3 succeeded at 83 with fuzz 1 (offset -21 lines).
....
At last, if the dry-run is giving good result,
do this and enjoy the compilation.
====> patch -p1 -i Tb02.patch
Second, if there were files in Tb02 that did not exist in Tb01 and
you want them included in the patch, give diff the -N option:
diff -crBN Tb01 Tb02 > Tb02.patch
Lastly, I’d note that diff and patch really only work with text files.
It can’t deal with jpegs, pdfs, or other binary objects.
This can be a bit of a pain for web and GUI developers.
No comments:
Post a Comment