Documentation / git-apply.txton commit Makefile: consolidate .FORCE-* targets (13fca9f)
   1git-apply(1)
   2============
   3
   4NAME
   5----
   6git-apply - Apply a patch to files and/or to the index
   7
   8
   9SYNOPSIS
  10--------
  11[verse]
  12'git apply' [--stat] [--numstat] [--summary] [--check] [--index]
  13          [--apply] [--no-add] [--build-fake-ancestor=<file>] [-R | --reverse]
  14          [--allow-binary-replacement | --binary] [--reject] [-z]
  15          [-pNUM] [-CNUM] [--inaccurate-eof] [--recount] [--cached]
  16          [--ignore-space-change | --ignore-whitespace ]
  17          [--whitespace=<nowarn|warn|fix|error|error-all>]
  18          [--exclude=PATH] [--include=PATH] [--directory=<root>]
  19          [--verbose] [<patch>...]
  20
  21DESCRIPTION
  22-----------
  23Reads the supplied diff output (i.e. "a patch") and applies it to files.
  24With the `--index` option the patch is also applied to the index, and
  25with the `--cache` option the patch is only applied to the index.
  26Without these options, the command applies the patch only to files,
  27and does not require them to be in a git repository.
  28
  29OPTIONS
  30-------
  31<patch>...::
  32        The files to read the patch from.  '-' can be used to read
  33        from the standard input.
  34
  35--stat::
  36        Instead of applying the patch, output diffstat for the
  37        input.  Turns off "apply".
  38
  39--numstat::
  40        Similar to `--stat`, but shows the number of added and
  41        deleted lines in decimal notation and the pathname without
  42        abbreviation, to make it more machine friendly.  For
  43        binary files, outputs two `-` instead of saying
  44        `0 0`.  Turns off "apply".
  45
  46--summary::
  47        Instead of applying the patch, output a condensed
  48        summary of information obtained from git diff extended
  49        headers, such as creations, renames and mode changes.
  50        Turns off "apply".
  51
  52--check::
  53        Instead of applying the patch, see if the patch is
  54        applicable to the current working tree and/or the index
  55        file and detects errors.  Turns off "apply".
  56
  57--index::
  58        When `--check` is in effect, or when applying the patch
  59        (which is the default when none of the options that
  60        disables it is in effect), make sure the patch is
  61        applicable to what the current index file records.  If
  62        the file to be patched in the working tree is not
  63        up-to-date, it is flagged as an error.  This flag also
  64        causes the index file to be updated.
  65
  66--cached::
  67        Apply a patch without touching the working tree. Instead take the
  68        cached data, apply the patch, and store the result in the index
  69        without using the working tree. This implies `--index`.
  70
  71--build-fake-ancestor=<file>::
  72        Newer 'git-diff' output has embedded 'index information'
  73        for each blob to help identify the original version that
  74        the patch applies to.  When this flag is given, and if
  75        the original versions of the blobs are available locally,
  76        builds a temporary index containing those blobs.
  77+
  78When a pure mode change is encountered (which has no index information),
  79the information is read from the current index instead.
  80
  81-R::
  82--reverse::
  83        Apply the patch in reverse.
  84
  85--reject::
  86        For atomicity, 'git-apply' by default fails the whole patch and
  87        does not touch the working tree when some of the hunks
  88        do not apply.  This option makes it apply
  89        the parts of the patch that are applicable, and leave the
  90        rejected hunks in corresponding *.rej files.
  91
  92-z::
  93        When `--numstat` has been given, do not munge pathnames,
  94        but use a NUL-terminated machine-readable format.
  95+
  96Without this option, each pathname output will have TAB, LF, double quotes,
  97and backslash characters replaced with `\t`, `\n`, `\"`, and `\\`,
  98respectively, and the pathname will be enclosed in double quotes if
  99any of those replacements occurred.
 100
 101-p<n>::
 102        Remove <n> leading slashes from traditional diff paths. The
 103        default is 1.
 104
 105-C<n>::
 106        Ensure at least <n> lines of surrounding context match before
 107        and after each change.  When fewer lines of surrounding
 108        context exist they all must match.  By default no context is
 109        ever ignored.
 110
 111--unidiff-zero::
 112        By default, 'git-apply' expects that the patch being
 113        applied is a unified diff with at least one line of context.
 114        This provides good safety measures, but breaks down when
 115        applying a diff generated with `--unified=0`. To bypass these
 116        checks use `--unidiff-zero`.
 117+
 118Note, for the reasons stated above usage of context-free patches is
 119discouraged.
 120
 121--apply::
 122        If you use any of the options marked "Turns off
 123        'apply'" above, 'git-apply' reads and outputs the
 124        requested information without actually applying the
 125        patch.  Give this flag after those flags to also apply
 126        the patch.
 127
 128--no-add::
 129        When applying a patch, ignore additions made by the
 130        patch.  This can be used to extract the common part between
 131        two files by first running 'diff' on them and applying
 132        the result with this option, which would apply the
 133        deletion part but not the addition part.
 134
 135--allow-binary-replacement::
 136--binary::
 137        Historically we did not allow binary patch applied
 138        without an explicit permission from the user, and this
 139        flag was the way to do so.  Currently we always allow binary
 140        patch application, so this is a no-op.
 141
 142--exclude=<path-pattern>::
 143        Don't apply changes to files matching the given path pattern. This can
 144        be useful when importing patchsets, where you want to exclude certain
 145        files or directories.
 146
 147--include=<path-pattern>::
 148        Apply changes to files matching the given path pattern. This can
 149        be useful when importing patchsets, where you want to include certain
 150        files or directories.
 151+
 152When `--exclude` and `--include` patterns are used, they are examined in the
 153order they appear on the command line, and the first match determines if a
 154patch to each path is used.  A patch to a path that does not match any
 155include/exclude pattern is used by default if there is no include pattern
 156on the command line, and ignored if there is any include pattern.
 157
 158--ignore-space-change::
 159--ignore-whitespace::
 160        When applying a patch, ignore changes in whitespace in context
 161        lines if necessary.
 162        Context lines will preserve their whitespace, and they will not
 163        undergo whitespace fixing regardless of the value of the
 164        `--whitespace` option. New lines will still be fixed, though.
 165
 166--whitespace=<action>::
 167        When applying a patch, detect a new or modified line that has
 168        whitespace errors.  What are considered whitespace errors is
 169        controlled by `core.whitespace` configuration.  By default,
 170        trailing whitespaces (including lines that solely consist of
 171        whitespaces) and a space character that is immediately followed
 172        by a tab character inside the initial indent of the line are
 173        considered whitespace errors.
 174+
 175By default, the command outputs warning messages but applies the patch.
 176When `git-apply` is used for statistics and not applying a
 177patch, it defaults to `nowarn`.
 178+
 179You can use different `<action>` values to control this
 180behavior:
 181+
 182* `nowarn` turns off the trailing whitespace warning.
 183* `warn` outputs warnings for a few such errors, but applies the
 184  patch as-is (default).
 185* `fix` outputs warnings for a few such errors, and applies the
 186  patch after fixing them (`strip` is a synonym --- the tool
 187  used to consider only trailing whitespace characters as errors, and the
 188  fix involved 'stripping' them, but modern gits do more).
 189* `error` outputs warnings for a few such errors, and refuses
 190  to apply the patch.
 191* `error-all` is similar to `error` but shows all errors.
 192
 193--inaccurate-eof::
 194        Under certain circumstances, some versions of 'diff' do not correctly
 195        detect a missing new-line at the end of the file. As a result, patches
 196        created by such 'diff' programs do not record incomplete lines
 197        correctly. This option adds support for applying such patches by
 198        working around this bug.
 199
 200-v::
 201--verbose::
 202        Report progress to stderr. By default, only a message about the
 203        current patch being applied will be printed. This option will cause
 204        additional information to be reported.
 205
 206--recount::
 207        Do not trust the line counts in the hunk headers, but infer them
 208        by inspecting the patch (e.g. after editing the patch without
 209        adjusting the hunk headers appropriately).
 210
 211--directory=<root>::
 212        Prepend <root> to all filenames.  If a "-p" argument was also passed,
 213        it is applied before prepending the new root.
 214+
 215For example, a patch that talks about updating `a/git-gui.sh` to `b/git-gui.sh`
 216can be applied to the file in the working tree `modules/git-gui/git-gui.sh` by
 217running `git apply --directory=modules/git-gui`.
 218
 219Configuration
 220-------------
 221
 222apply.ignorewhitespace::
 223        Set to 'change' if you want changes in whitespace to be ignored by default.
 224        Set to one of: no, none, never, false if you want changes in
 225        whitespace to be significant.
 226apply.whitespace::
 227        When no `--whitespace` flag is given from the command
 228        line, this configuration item is used as the default.
 229
 230Submodules
 231----------
 232If the patch contains any changes to submodules then 'git-apply'
 233treats these changes as follows.
 234
 235If `--index` is specified (explicitly or implicitly), then the submodule
 236commits must match the index exactly for the patch to apply.  If any
 237of the submodules are checked-out, then these check-outs are completely
 238ignored, i.e., they are not required to be up-to-date or clean and they
 239are not updated.
 240
 241If `--index` is not specified, then the submodule commits in the patch
 242are ignored and only the absence or presence of the corresponding
 243subdirectory is checked and (if possible) updated.
 244
 245Author
 246------
 247Written by Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
 248
 249Documentation
 250--------------
 251Documentation by Junio C Hamano
 252
 253GIT
 254---
 255Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite