Makepatch

This is the makepatch package, containing a pair of programs to assist in the generation and application of patch kits to synchronise source trees. The makepatch package contains two programs, both written in Perl: 'makepatch' and 'applypatch'. 'makepatch' will generate a patch kit from two source trees. It traverses the source directory and runs a 'diff' on each pair of corresponding files, accumulating the output into a patch kit. It knows about the conventions for patch kits: if a file named patchlevel.h exists, it is handled first, so 'patch' can check the version of the source tree. Also, to deal with the non-perfect versions of 'patch' that are in use, it supplies 'Index:' and 'Prereq:' lines, so 'patch' can correctly locate the files to patch, and it relocates the patch to the current directory to avoid problems with creating new files. The list of files can be specified in a so called 'manifest' file, but it can also be generated by recursively traversing the source tree. Files can be excludes using shell style wildcards and Perl regex patterns. Moreover, 'makepatch' prepends a small shell script in front of the patch kit that creates the necessary files and directories for the patch process. By running the patch kit as a shell script your source directory is prepared for the patching process. But that is not it! 'makepatch' also inserts some additional information in the patch kit for use by the 'applypatch' program. The 'applypatch' program will do the following: - It will extensively verify that the patch kit is complete and not corrupted during transfer. - It will apply some heuristics to verify that the directory in which the patch will be applied does indeed contain the expected sources. - It creates files and directories as necessary. - It applies the patch by running the 'patch' program. - Upon completion, obsolete files, directories and .orig files are removed, file modes of new files are set, and the timestamps of all patched files are adjusted. Note that 'applypatch' only requires the 'patch' program. It does not rely on a shell or shell tools. This makes it possible to apply patches on non-Unix systems.