Question

So, I try to patch my current branch using command

patch -p RETURN quote-patch.txt

However, I dont know what number should I put after -p option.I tried to put several number (0,1,2,3,4), but it return this error:

patching file RETURN
Hunk #1 FAILED at 74.
Hunk #2 FAILED at 84.
Hunk #3 FAILED at 95.
Hunk #4 FAILED at 107.
Hunk #5 FAILED at 139.
Hunk #6 FAILED at 187.
6 out of 6 hunks FAILED -- saving rejects to file RETURN.rej

any idea? thx

Answer 1

Your patch does not apply to your current working set.

Without more information, I cannot say why that is the case. Perhaps you changed RETURN locally before attempting the patch application. As the message suggests, try taking a look in RETURN.rej (and RETURN itself) to fix up the fallout.

When using the patch command-line utility, you should use a -p number which causes the paths in the patch to match up with those in your working set: If the patch header says +++ lib/foo/RETURN, and your current working directory has foo/RETURN in it, that would be a case for -p1.

However, since you’ve tagged this question “git”, I’m going to assume you’re in a git repository. When using git, you shouldn’t use the patch tool: instead, either push+pull changes naturally, or use git format-patch and git am to send and receive sets of changes. That will preserve permissions, commit messages, authorship information, and so on. All this extra metadata would be lost if you use a straight diff and then apply the change with patch.