Re: question on generating a patch

[Peter Samuelson]

[David L. Parsley]
> I read the FAQ and SubmittingPatches, but how best to generate a
> patch that moves a file from on dir to another?  diff -urNP makes the
> patch a lot longer than it seems like it should be...

A major weakness of the 'patch' command -- you cannot gracefully move
or rename files.  Larry Wall saw this years ago and invented a hybrid
sort of patch that runs as a shar-like shell script, moving things
around before actually applying itself as a patch.  But most people,
including linux-kernel, don't use lwall's patch+shar format.

- If it's a fairly small file anyway, just use 'diff -urN' and don't
worry about it.

- If it's a large file or several files, or if you are making
significant changes to said files besides moving them, you should
probably list two separate steps: first, describe the rearrangement,
perhaps as a series of 'mv' commands; second, give us a patch against
the new arrangement.

Either way, you need to make it clear what changes, if any, have been
made to a particular file "in transit".  With just 'diff -urN' and no
explanation, it is hard to tell one way or the other.

Peter