[bug-patch] Patch reported as garbage unfairly?

[Reuben Thomas]

I have a patch starting:

diff .\clue.c D:\ÏÂÔØÇø\clue-7\clue.c
17c17
< int clue_do(clue_State *L, const char *code)
---
> void clue_do(clue_State *L, const char *code)

which patch disdains:

Hmm...  I can't seem to find a patch in there anywhere.
patch: **** Only garbage was found in the patch input.

I tried converting the patch to Unix line endings (then saw this
wasn't necessary according to the documentation). I tried converting
the backslashes to forward slashes. I tried removing the top-bit-set
characters (I'm guessing this is a Chinese multi-byte encoding, since
I got the patch from a Chinese collaborator). The documentation also
mentions that binary files should work, so I guess it's not the odd
characters anyway. I found myself, when I tried looking at the source,
in intuit_diff_type, which is about 500 lines long.

file says the patch is diff output, but file is superficial...

I attach the patch file in case it's not obvious what I'm doing wrong.
I'd like to know whether I should've had more of a clue from the
documentation, or whether I'm just being dumb.

I'm using patch 2.6.1.116-8678 for testing (latest git).

-- 
http://rrt.sc3d.org

patch
Description: Binary data