Patches
Tagging		Managing Repositories

Patches

Creating Patches

"A patch is a piece of software designed to fix problems with, or update a computer program or its supporting data" (wikipedia). A patch file contains a description of changes of a set of resources which can be automatically applied to another eclipse workspace or git repository.

The patch formats used by eclipse ( Team > Apply Patch) and by git ( git apply or git am on the command line) are different. It is possible to create both types of a patch in EGit.

Create a Patch from a Commit

This is the most common use case for a distributed versioning system. A developer commits a change on a local feature or bugfix branch and wants to export this change into a patch file.

It can be done from the history view:

The patch file will contain the difference between the commit and its parent in the history view. Note that the filter of the history view applies also for patch creation.

Patch Wizard

The Wizard consists of two pages. Page one lets you select the location of the patch:

The name of the patch file is created from the first line of the commit message.

On the second page you can change the patch format.

Currently there is one check box: Export in git patch format.

• If you do not check it (this is the default) the patch can be applied with the eclipse Apply Patch... wizard. The paths are relative to the eclipse projects and do not contain prefixes (like git format-patch --no-prefix on the git command line).
• If you check it the patch will look like the result of git format-patch --no-stat on the git command line.

Applying Patches

Currently it s not possible to apply patches in git format. It is possible to apply patches using the standard eclipse format using Team > Apply Patch....

Tagging		Managing Repositories