Re: LYNX-DEV To the folk providing the great cgi that generates development code patches

[Klaus Weide]

On Tue, 29 Jul 1997, Larry W. Virden, x2487 wrote:

> The whomever maintains <URL: 
> http://www.slcc.edu/cgi-bin/lynx/patch-o-matic.cgi >
> I have one suggestion.  It would be useful to include, as a one or two line
> comment at the beginning of the patch, what the user needs to do to
> apply the patch.
> 
> For example - is the format known to work with the latest version of GNU
> patch or not (I know that some patch formats are not all that compatible with
> certain recent versions of GNU's patch).
> 
> Does one apply the patch in the directory above lynx2-7-1 or within that
> directory?
> 
> Is there one or more flags that are recommended (like -p1 perhaps?).
> 
> The reason I mention this is that the last couple times I have tried to
> use the patches I've had problems.  Even though all I do is configure and then
> edit userdefs.h, I've had some problems with recent patches.  I get patch
> asking me where the files are, even though it lists the name I end up
> typing in.  I get patch failures in source and header files, etc.

The patches should work with `patch -p0 < ...' from the directory
above lynx2-7-1 (the same directory where one has done the `unzip' or
`tar xvf' or whatever to unpack the full package.  According to my
`man patch', they should also work in that case without any `-p'
option *in most cases*, but I don't recommend relying on it.

Alternatively they should also work with `patch -p1 < ...' while in the
lynx2-7-1 directory.

I don't know how well this deals with the infrequent situation where a
file is renamed (as recently Makefile -> Makefile.old).  At the very
least, your old "Makefile" would probably still be around, when it
shouldn't.  Also, if you happened to have a "Makefile.old" of your
own, already, it may cause confusion, so some manual intervention
could be necessary.

I am referring to 

$ patch --version
Patch version 2.1

I am not familiar enough with patch and its various versions and
incompatibilities to say anything further.  To include some hints on
the patch-o-matic page, somebody first has to get the experience on
which those could be based :).  (I am not using patch much myself, at
least for the devel code changes and fotemods comparisons.)  So if you
have some concrete examples where patch fails with the `-p' options as
given above, you should share them.  Of course first make sure that
"Patch from:" version really reflects the state of the source code you
have - I remind you of the caveat regarding LYNX_VERSION in userdefs.h,
which you can read by following the HELP link.

     Klaus

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