Patches

How to apply a patch

An example is better that an explanation. Here we will patch to upgrade from 0.1.0 release to 1.0.0 release.

$ ls
cole-0.1.0/      cole-0.1.0-1.0.0.diff
$ cd cole-0.1.0
$ patch -Np1 < ../cole-0.1.0-1.0.0.diff
$ cd ..
$ mv cole-0.1.0 cole-1.0.0
$ ls
cole-1.0.0/      cole-0.1.0-1.0.0.diff

How to make a patch

If you fix or add some code, we will very glad if you send the patch to the maintainer. The right way to make a patch is to have two directories: the original (here cole-1.0.0) and another when your changes have been made (here cole-1.0.0-myfix).

$ ls
cole-1.0.0/      cole-1.0.0-myfix/
$ LC_ALL=C TZ=UTC0 diff -Naur cole-1.0.0 cole-1.0.0-myfix > cole-1.0.0-patch
$ ls
cole-1.0.0/      cole-1.0.0-my-fix/      cole-1.0.0-patch
      

You can then send cole-1.0.0-patch to the maintainer explaining what did you fix or what did you add.