Unified patch diff

Is it possible to create a diff file that would work without having the actual files in the diff file? You might need to adjust the -p option or drop it according to how you passed the folder parameters to 'diff' and from which folder you are applying the patch, check the patch manpage for more details.

But usually -p0 will work just fine if the other person applies the patch in the "same location" in which you created the patch. Once you see that the patch command works without any rejections, you can remove the --dry-run option to actually applying it. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? You can even create a patch file that someone not using Git might find useful by simply piping the git diff output to a file, given that it uses the exact format of the diffcommand that patch can consume.

Of course, GitHub takes these capabilities into a web-based user interface so you can view file changes on a pull request. In this view, you will note that it is effectively a unified diff view in your web browser, and GitHub allows you to download these changes as a raw patch file. Unless you are a developer on a project still using a patch file-based development method—like the Linux kernel—you will consume these capabilities primarily through a source code control system like Git.

And who knows—they may come in handy someday when you need to work with patches from a mailing list in the Linux world. If you're using someone else's patch, you have to make sure you are patching the correct version of the file.

I've had times when I have manually edited a file, using the information in the patch file, so I could be sure I was making the correct changes. An introduction to diffs and patches An introduction to diffs and patches.

Here's everything you need to know about diffs and patches, including examples of how to use them in open source projects. Image credits :. Get the highlights in your inbox every week. Topics Linux. You can view the full manual here or run:. This is the simplest usage of the diff command and will output the difference between the two supplied files to the console:. This will create or overwrite! Directories can also be compared using the -r recursive option to compare their contents:.

It can take a while. To create a patch — a list of differences between two files that can be applied to another copy of the first file to make it identical to the second, the following command can be used:. The -u option outputs the differences in a unified format which can be used by the patch command to update the original file with the changes. When your friend receives the patch, they can apply it using the following patch command:.

If you made a mistake, you could undo a patch by running it in reverse with the -R option:. The following command will create a patch for an entire directory by running the -r recursive , -u unified format , and -N treat absent files as empty options.

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