1patch(1) User Commands patch(1)
2
6 patch - apply changes to files
7
9 patch [-blNR] [-c | -e | -n | -u] [-d dir] [-D define]
10 [-i patchfile] [-o outfile] [-p num] [-r rejectfile]
11 [file]
12
15 The patch command reads a source (patch) file containing any of the
16 three forms of difference (diff) listings produced by the diff(1) com‐
17 mand (normal, context or in the style of ed(1)) and apply those differ‐
18 ences to a file. By default, patch reads from the standard input.
19 patch attempts to determine the type of the diff listing, unless over‐
22 ruled by a -c, -e, or -n option.
23 If the patch file contains more than one patch, patch attempts to apply
26 each of them as if they came from separate patch files. (In this case
27 the name of the patch file must be determinable for each diff listing.)
28
30 The following options are supported:
31 -b Saves a copy of the original contents of each modified
33 file, before the differences are applied, in a file of the
34 same name with the suffix .orig appended to it. If the
35 file already exists, it is overwritten. If multiple
36 patches are applied to the same file, the .orig file is
37 written only for the first patch. When the -o outfile
38 option is also specified, file.orig is not created but, if
39 outfile already exists, outfile.orig is created.
40 -c Interprets the patch file as a context difference (the
43 output of the command diff when the -c or -C options are
44 specified).
45 -d dir Changes the current directory to dir before processing as
48 described in EXTENDED DESCRIPTION.
49 -D define Marks changes with the C preprocessor construct:
52 #ifdef define
54 ...
55 #endif
56 The option-argument define is used as the differentiating symbol.
62 -e Interprets the patch file as an ed script, rather than
64 a diff script.
65 -i patchfile Reads the patch information from the file named by the
68 path name patchfile, rather than the standard input.
69 -l (The letter ell.) Causes any sequence of blank charac‐
72 ters in the difference script to match any sequence of
73 blank characters in the input file. Other characters
74 is matched exactly.
75 -n Interprets the script as a normal difference.
78 -N Ignores patches where the differences have already
81 been applied to the file; by default, already-applied
82 patches are rejected.
83 -o outfile Instead of modifying the files (specified by the file
86 operand or the difference listings) directly, writes a
87 copy of the file referenced by each patch, with the
88 appropriate differences applied, to outfile. Multiple
89 patches for a single file is applied to the intermedi‐
90 ate versions of the file created by any previous
91 patches, and results in multiple, concatenated ver‐
92 sions of the file being written to outfile.
93 -p num For all path names in the patch file that indicate the
96 names of files to be patched, deletes num path name
97 components from the beginning of each path name. If
98 the path name in the patch file is absolute, any lead‐
99 ing slashes are considered the first component (that
100 is, -p 1 removes the leading slashes). Specifying -p 0
101 causes the full path name to be used. If -p is not
102 specified, only the basename (the final path name com‐
103 ponent) is used.
104 -R Reverses the sense of the patch script. That is,
107 assumes that the difference script was created from
108 the new version to the old version. The -R option can‐
109 not be used with ed scripts. patch attempts to reverse
110 each portion of the script before applying it.
111 Rejected differences is saved in swapped format. If
112 this option is not specified, and until a portion of
113 the patch file is successfully applied, patch attempts
114 to apply each portion in its reversed sense as well as
115 in its normal sense. If the attempt is successful, the
116 user is prompted to determine if the -R option should
117 be set.
118 -r rejectfile Overrides the default reject file name. In the default
121 case, the reject file has the same name as the output
122 file, with the suffix .rej appended to it. See Patch
123 Application.
124 -u Interprets the patch file as a unified context differ‐
127 ence, that is, the output of the command diff when the
128 -u or -U options are specified.
129
132 The following operand is supported:
133 file A path name of a file to patch.
135
138 The -R option does not work with ed scripts because there is too little
139 information to reconstruct the reverse operation.
140 The -p option makes it possible to customize a patch file to local user
143 directory structures without manually editing the patch file. For exam‐
144 ple, if the file name in the patch file was
145 /curds/whey/src/blurfl/blurfl.c:
146 o Setting -p 0 gives the entire path name unmodified.
148 o Setting -p 1 gives:
150 curds/whey/src/blurfl/blurfl.c
152 o Without the leading slash, -p 4 gives:
156 blurfl/blurfl.c
158 o Not specifying -p at all gives:
162 blurfl.c
164 When using -b in some file system implementations, the saving of a
169 .orig file might produce unwanted results. In the case of 12-, 13-, or
170 14-character file names, on file systems supporting 14-character maxi‐
171 mum file names, the .orig file overwrites the new file.
172
174 See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables
175 that affect the execution of patch: LANG, LC_ALL, LC_COLLATE, LC_CTYPE,
176 LC_MESSAGES, LC_TIME, and NLSPATH.
177 Affirmative responses are processed using the extended regular expres‐
180 sion defined for the yesexpr keyword in the LC_MESSAGES category of the
181 user's locale. The locale specified in the LC_COLLATE category defines
182 the behavior of ranges, equivalence classes, and multi-character col‐
183 lating elements used in the expression defined for yesexpr. The locale
184 specified in LC_CTYPE determines the locale for interpretation of
185 sequences of bytes of text data a characters, the behavior of character
186 classes used in the expression defined for the yesexpr. See locale(5).
187
189 The output of patch the save files (.orig suffixes) and the reject
190 files (.rej suffixes) are text files.
191
193 A patch file can contain patching instructions for more than one file.
194 File names are determined as specified in Patch Determination. When the
195 -b option is specified, for each patched file, the original is saved in
196 a file of the same name with the suffix .orig appended to it.
197 For each patched file, a reject file can also be created as noted in
200 Patch Application. In the absence of an -r option, the name of this
201 file is formed by appending the suffix .rej to the original file name.
202 Patch File Format
204 The patch file must contain zero or more lines of header information
205 followed by one or more patches. Each patch must contain zero or more
206 lines of file name identification in the format produced by diff -c,
207 and one or more sets of diff output, which are customarily called
208 hunks.
209 patch recognizes the following expression in the header information:
212 Index:pathname The file to be patched is named pathname.
214 If all lines (including headers) within a patch begin with the same
218 leading sequence of blank characters, patch removes this sequence
219 before proceeding. Within each patch, if the type of difference is con‐
220 text, patch recognizes the following expressions:
221 *** filename timestamp
223 The patches arose from filename.
225 −−− filename timestamp
228 The patches should be applied to filename.
230 Each hunk within a patch must be the diff output to change a line range
234 within the original file. The line numbers for successive hunks within
235 a patch must occur in ascending order.
236 File Name Determination
238 If no file operand is specified, patch performs the following steps to
239 obtain a path name:
240 1. If the patch contains the strings *** and −−−, patch strips
242 components from the beginning of each path name (depending
243 on the presence or value of the -p option), then tests for
244 the existence of both files in the current directory (or
245 directory specified with the -d option).
246 2. If both files exist, patch assumes that no path name can be
248 obtained from this step. If the header information contains
249 a line with the string Index:, patch strips components from
250 the beginning of the path name (depending on -p), then tests
251 for the existence of this file in the current directory (or
252 directory specified with the -d option).
253 3. If an SCCS directory exists in the current directory, patch
255 attempts to perform a get -e SCCS/s.filename command to
256 retrieve an editable version of the file.
257 4. If no path name can be obtained by applying the previous
259 steps, or if the path names obtained do not exist, patch
260 writes a prompt to standard output and request a file name
261 interactively from standard input.
262 Patch Application
264 If the -c, -e, -n, or -u option is present, patch interprets informa‐
265 tion within each hunk as a context difference, an ed difference, a nor‐
266 mal difference, or a unified context difference, respectively. In the
267 absence of any of these options, patch determines the type of differ‐
268 ence based on the format of information within the hunk.
269 For each hunk, patch begins to search for the place to apply the patch
272 at the line number at the beginning of the hunk, plus or minus any off‐
273 set used in applying the previous hunk. If lines matching the hunk con‐
274 text are not found, patch scans both forwards and backwards at least
275 1000 bytes for a set of lines that match the hunk context.
276 If no such place is found and it is a context difference, then another
279 scan takes place, ignoring the first and last line of context. If that
280 fails, the first two and last two lines of context is ignored and
281 another scan is made. Implementations can search more extensively for
282 installation locations.
283 If no location can be found, patch appends the hunk to the reject file.
286 The rejected hunk is written in context-difference format regardless of
287 the format of the patch file. If the input was a normal or ed -style
288 difference, the reject file can contain differences with zero lines of
289 context. The line numbers on the hunks in the reject file can be dif‐
290 ferent from the line numbers in the patch file since they reflect the
291 approximate locations for the failed hunks in the new file rather than
292 the old one.
293 If the type of patch is an ed diff, the implementation can accomplish
296 the patching by invoking the ed command.
297
299 The following exit values are returned:
300 0 Successful completion.
302 1 One or more lines were written to a reject file.
305 >1 An error occurred.
308
311 See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
312 ┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
317 │ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
318 ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
319 │Availability │SUNWcsu │
320 ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
321 │Interface Stability │Standard │
322 └─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
323
325 ed(1), diff(1), attributes(5), environ(5), standards(5)
326SunOS 5.11 17 Jul 2007 patch(1)