CODEWITHSUNDEEP
linuxdiffpatch
Kev
Kev

Reputation: 16321

Normal-format diff files giving "only garbage" error...don't want unified/context

I'm trying to use the normal format to create a patch and then apply it. Despite -n on both diff and patch, and an explicit file output -o on patch, I get the error:

patch: **** Only garbage was found in the patch input.

How can I solve this? I can't use unified or context patches in this case, so that's not a solution.

Is it a bug or something? Editor format seems to work, for some reason:

$ echo a > a.txt
$ echo b > b.txt
$ diff -n a.txt b.txt > ab.diff
$ patch -n -o a.txt a.txt ab.diff
patch: **** Only garbage was found in the patch input.
$ diff -e a.txt b.txt > ab.diff
$ patch -e -o a.txt a.txt ab.diff
$ diff a.txt b.txt
$

This is on Linux Mint 16, with:

$ diff --version
diff (GNU diffutils) 3.2
$ patch --version
GNU patch 2.7.1

Upvotes: 4

Views: 3864

Answers (1)

enrico.bacis
enrico.bacis

Reputation: 31484

According to the man page of diff, you are not using the normal diff format with -n but the RCS one:

-n --rcs
   Output an RCS format diff.

In order to use the normal format you can use the --normal option. In the patch command instead -n specifies the normal mode. So it's not a bug, more an unhappy naming convention.

Example

$ echo a > a.txt
$ echo b > b.txt
$ diff --normal a.txt b.txt > ab.diff
$ patch --normal a.txt ab.diff
$ diff a.txt b.txt
$

(You can avoid the --normal flags since they are the default format for both the commands)

Upvotes: 4

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