Sender: rich AT phekda DOT freeserve DOT co DOT uk
Message-ID: <39E06A7C.9BD27470@phekda.freeserve.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2000 13:37:16 +0100
From: Richard Dawe <rich AT phekda DOT freeserve DOT co DOT uk>
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To: DJGPP workers <djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com>
Subject: Bizarre patch behaviour
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Reply-To: djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com

Hello.

While trying to generate a patch for the Fileutils port, I encountered
some strange behaviour with [the DJGPP port of] patch 2.5, 2.5.3. I have
modified the Fileutils sources & created a couple of files. If I create a
diff using the command-line ('.' = location original Fileutils sources):

    diff -pPrC3 . /develop/ports/gnu.dev/filutil4.0 > [some-dir]/diffs

and then try to apply the patch another fresh copy of the Fileutils
sources:

    patch -p0 -i [some-dir]/diffs

then patch tries to patch the files in /develop/ports/gnu.dev/filutil4.0!
patch detects that the patch has already been applied to these files
(unsurprising) and suggests reversing the patch, etc. Why does it apply
all differences to files present in the original distribution OK and then
change direction for the new files?

Here's a solution: use relative paths for creating the patch (or do global
search and replace afterwards, slightly dangerous). Patch seems to work
then.

Am I missing some expected patch behaviour here? I've read the info docs
for patch, diffutils, but I can't see anything.

Thanks, bye,

-- 
Richard Dawe
[ mailto:richdawe AT bigfoot DOT com | http://www.bigfoot.com/~richdawe/ ]