Warning: patch-2.2 and zsh-3.1.2 patch

Warning: patch-2.2 and zsh-3.1.2 patch

[Andrej Borsenkow]

Probably of some interest: I had problems with new patch 2.2. First, it
rejects plain -p option (without operand); second, if given patch
_without_ -p option at all, it cannot find any file with pathname.

patch -p0 seems to work. I don't remember, if -p0 was legal option in
earlier versions of patch, but if yes, please, add it to your shell
script. 

As a side note, our shell doesn't like 
     echo $errors hunk(s) failed.
line. It complaints "syntax error: `(' unexpected". It is claimed to be
POSIX-compliant.

greetings

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrej Borsenkow 		Fax:   +7 (095) 252 01 05
SNI ITS Moscow			Tel:   +7 (095) 252 13 88

NERV:  borsenkow.msk		E-Mail: borsenkow.msk@sni.de
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Warning: patch-2.2 and zsh-3.1.2 patch

[Hrvoje Niksic]

Andrej Borsenkow <borsenkow.msk@sni.de> writes:

> Probably of some interest: I had problems with new patch 2.2. First,
> it rejects plain -p option (without operand);

It's a "feature" of the new patch; you must add the 0 operand
explicitly now.

> second, if given patch _without_ -p option at all, it cannot find
> any file with pathname.

Patch without `-p' simply ignores the directory name; that aspect is
unchanged.

Why the patch developers chose to change patch behaviour now is
totally beyond me.  The change isn't significant enough to be called a
major breakage, but it certainly is annoying.  And there was *no need*
for it.

-- 
Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr> | Student at FER Zagreb, Croatia
--------------------------------+--------------------------------
Contrary to popular belief, Unix is user friendly.  
It just happens to be selective about who it makes friends with.

Re: Warning: patch-2.2 and zsh-3.1.2 patch

[Zoltan T. Hidvegi]

Andrej Borsenkow wrote:
> Probably of some interest: I had problems with new patch 2.2. First, it
> rejects plain -p option (without operand); second, if given patch

That's bad.  I've been using using patch -p for ages.

> _without_ -p option at all, it cannot find any file with pathname.

Yes, you should not use it without -p.  It can patch the wrong Makefile.in
and other bad things can happen.

> patch -p0 seems to work. I don't remember, if -p0 was legal option in
> earlier versions of patch, but if yes, please, add it to your shell
> script.

Yes, -p0 was always legal, but I was always lazy to write this redundant
zero.  And I'm sure that I'll keep forgetting this well after I upgrade my
patch program.

> As a side note, our shell doesn't like
>      echo $errors hunk(s) failed.
> line. It complaints "syntax error: `(' unexpected". It is claimed to be
> POSIX-compliant.

Which is OK, since no other POSIX/Bourne shell can parse that line.  I did
not notice this since when I tested this, the patch did not fail and this
line was never executed.

Zoltan