Re: any good diff merging utility?

Ivan Vadovic (pivo@pobox.sk)
Mon, 18 Jun 2001 02:34:59 +0200


> > I like to build kernels with a bunch of patches on top to test
> > new stuff. The problem is that it takes a lot of effort to fix
> > all the failed hunks during patching that really wouldn't have
> > to be failed if only patch was a little more inteligent and
> > could merge several patches into one ( if possible) or if could
> > take into account already applied patches.
>
> The basic problem here is that the "failed hunks" are usually there
> because of conflicts between the two patches in question, and as a
> result, they are not as easy to merge automagically as one might at
> first assume.

Very often the case is that they indeed can be merged automagically.
For example two patches inserting few lines right after the #include
lines.

patch1:
@@ 10,1 10,2 @@
#include <foo.h>
+#include <1.h>

patch2:
@@ 10,1 10,2 @@
#include <foo.h>
+#include <2.h>

The patch will fail to patch :-). But there is no real conflict between
the patches.

> > Well, are there any utilities to merge diffs? I couldn't find
> > any on freshmeat. So what are you using to stack many patches
> > onto the kernel tree? Just manualy modify the diff? I'll try to
> > write something more automatic if nothing comes up.
>
> I once came across a utility called "diff3" that was designed to take
> a patch for one version of a package and create an equivalent patch
> for another version of the same package, but I haven't been able to
> find it again since my hard drive crashed.

diff3 comes from gnu diffutils
<ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/diffutils/diffutils-2.7.tar.gz>. But all it does
is comparing three FILES for differencies.

Ivan Vadovic
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