how to apply a patch.

[Jonathan I. Kamens]

In article <1991Feb13.065155.17279 at nntp-server.caltech.edu>, gwoho at nntp-server.caltech.edu (g liu) writes:
|> how do i apply the patches that show up in comp.sources. something?
|> do i just put them through ex or ed or whatever?
|> i assume there is a better way because it would take a long time
|> time do this to a large number of files.
|> if there is a program to do this, where can i find it?
|> gwoho liu.

  The short diffs can, with some frobbing, be fed into ed to change the source
code.  But that isn't the kind of diff that usually gets posted to the net. 
Usually, what you see are the long "context" diffs, which should be applied
with the "patch" program.

  If "patch" isn't installed on your site, it can be retrieved from the
comp.sources.unix archives on uunet.uu.net, or on any other machine that
archives comp.sources.unix.  It's also available in GNU archives, such as
prep.ai.mit.edu, I believe, and the version in the GNU archives might be more
up-to-date.

-- 
Jonathan Kamens			              USnail:
MIT Project Athena				11 Ashford Terrace
jik at Athena.MIT.EDU				Allston, MA  02134
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P.S. Re the "comp.unix.questions" Followup-To -- I know that patch and diff
aren't really exclusively Unix things, but it seems like the closest thing to
appropriate.