dpatch-edit-patch (1)

dpatch-edit-patch [options] command dpatchname [basepatch]

This manual documents the dpatch-edit-patch command which maintains dpatch patches for a dpatch-using Debian source package.

dpatch-edit-patch will copy the full tree to a temporary directory for working.

dpatch is deprecated, please switch to the `3.0 (quilt)' Debian source package format instead. See http://wiki.debian.org/Projects/DebSrc3.0#FAQ for a short guide on how to do it.

dpatch-edit-patch takes two forms of arguments; options and commands. Currently, the only command that exists is “patch”, which allows you to create/edit dpatches. When no command is given, “patch” is assumed.

COMMANDS:

patch

This command requires one mandatory argument, and accepts one optional argument under certain circumstances. The mandatory argument is dpatchname. This refers to a dpatch, as it would be listed in debian/patches/00list. It is not necessary for dpatchname to exist prior to running dpatch-edit-patch patch dpatchname.

When dpatchname exists, dpatch-edit-patch will set up a working source tree, apply all dpatches listed in debian/patches/00list up to and including dpatchname, and spawn an interactive shell for the developer. The developer then edits files in this working tree. When the developer is done, they exit the shell. dpatch-edit-patch then updates dpatchname to reflect the changes made. Should the developer wish to abort the process from the interactive shell, they need only cause the shell to exit with an exit value of 230. Typically, this is done by exiting the shell with the command exit 230.

Would the developer wish to see the patch one's currently works on without exiting the subshell, two environment variables are exported into the subshell to help with this: DPEP_SHELL_REFDIR, which is set to the reference directory's full name, and DPEP_SHELL_WORKDIR, which is set to the subshell's working directory.

These two can be used to - for example - generate a diff between the reference version and the current tree:

diff -urNa $DPEP_SHELL_REFDIR $DPEP_SHELL_WORKDIR

When dpatchname does not exist, dpatch-edit-patch will assume that a new dpatch should be created. As with the above scenario, dpatch-edit-patch first creates a working source tree. If the optional argument basepatch is supplied, all dpatches in debian/patches/00list up to and including basepatch will be applied to the working tree. If basepatch is not supplied, no dpatches are applied to the working tree. When then developer exits the shell, dpatch-edit-patch will create dpatchname. If debian/patches/00template does not exist, a hardcoded dpatch header and shell snippet will be used. If it exists and is not executable, it will be copied verbatim as the header and shell snippet.

Its first parameter is the base filename of the to-be-updated or to-be-created dpatch (useful for adding titles to the dpatch header). Its second parameter will be the description of the new patch.

OPTIONS

For the following options, command-line arguments take precedence over environment variables, which take precedence over configuration variables. Configuration variables are read from debian/patches/00dpatch.conf and ~/.dpatch.conf.

-s, --sourcedir=value

Directory containing unpacked Debian source package. Configuration variable conf_sourcedir (settable only in ~/.dpatch.conf), environment variable DPEP_SOURCEDIR. Defaults to the current working directory.

-o, --outdir=value

Directory where the updated or newly-created dpatch will be placed. Configuration variable conf_outdir (~/.dpatch.conf), environment variable DPEP_OUTDIR. Defaults to ./debian/patches/

-c, --clean

Indicate to dpatch-edit-patch that the current work directory can safely be cleaned. If not given, dpatch-edit-patch tries to preserve partial or complete builds by first copying the current work directory to a reference directory before invoking debian/rules clean on the reference directory. If given, the current directory is cleaned and then taken as a reference directory. Use this option if your source package is pretty large and no significant work is destroyed by cleaning. Configuration variable conf_clean (~/.dpatch.conf), Environment variable DPEP_CLEAN.

-b, --debianonly[=path]

Indicate to dpatch-edit-patch that the current work directory only contains a debian subdirectory and that an upstream tarball is to be unpacked in the reference directory before copying the current work directory there. The optional argument is the path to the upstream tarball - including the tarball name. If no value is given, dpatch-edit-patch will use the hook script pointed to by conf_getorigtargz (~/.dpatch.conf) or DPEP_GETORIGTARGZ to obtain the upstream tarball. The hook script should take one argument: the destination directory where the fetched archive shall be put. Configuration variables: conf_debianonly (debian/patches/00dpatch.conf) and conf_origtargz (~/.dpatch.conf), Environment Variables DPEP_DEBIANONLY and DPEP_ORIGTARGZ.

-P, --origtargzpath=path

When -b is in use, specify the path where upstream tarballs should be looked for. path is a colon-separated list of directories. Configuration variables: conf_origtargzpath (~/.dpatch.conf), Environment Variables DPEP_ORIGTARGZPATH.

-r, --rootcmd=value

Command used to gain root privileges used to clean DPEP_SOURCEDIR. Configuration variable conf_rootcmd, environment variable DPEP_ROOTCMD. Defaults to fakeroot, if installed. If none of the above are specified, and fakeroot is not installed, dpatch-edit-patch will abort. The dpatch authors strongly recommend the use of fakeroot for this purpose.

-d, --description=value

Description used for a newly-created patch. Configuration variable conf_newdesc (~/.dpatch.conf), environment variable DPEP_NEWDESC, defaults to “No description.”

-k, --keeptemp=value

Boolean value, either 0 or 1. Configuration variable conf_keeptemp (~/.dpatch.conf), environment variable DPEP_KEEPTEMP. When set to 1, temporary working tree is not deleted when dpatch-edit-patch is done.

-t, --tmpdir=value

Temporary directory within which dpatch-edit-patch will create the working source tree. Configuration variable conf_tmpdir (~/.dpatch.conf), environment variable DPEP_TMPDIR. Should none of the above be set, dpatch-edit-patch will first attempt to use the environment variable TMPDIR, and will fall back to /tmp.

-p, --stampdir=value

The directory dpatch has used for creating patch stamps. Used for checking if patch to be edited is already applied to the working tree. Configuration variable conf_stampdir (~/.dpatch.conf), environment variable DPEP_STAMPDIR. Should none of the above be set, dpatch-edit-patch will fall back to debian/patched

-e, --exclude=valuelist

Space-separated list of file- and directory names that dpatch-edit-patch will exclude from being copied and diffed. Configuration variable conf_exclude (~/.dpatch.conf), environment variable DPEP_EXCLUDE. Defaults to "CVS .svn .git .arch .hg _darcs .bzr", which might cause you trouble if you use files named like that in your package.

-O, --diffopts=valuelist

Extra options to directly pass to diff as-is. Configuration variable conf_diffopts (~/.dpatch.conf), environment variable DPEP_DIFF_OPTIONS. It is empty by default.

-l, --shell=shell

Tell dpatch-edit-patch which shell to invoke. Configuration variable conf_shell (~/.dpatch.conf), environment variable DPEP_SHELL, defaulting to $SHELL and the user's default shell.

-n, --notimestamp

Tell dpatch-edit-patch to remove timestamps from the diffs it generates. Can also be set in debian/patches/00options, with the DPEP_OMIT_TIMESTAMPS variable.

-0, --add2list

add the new patch to 00list file.

-a, --applyall

apply all available patches.

Create a new patch to be applied after an existing patch.

To create a new patch, to be applied after an existing patch 90_ctrlkeyfix:

$ dpatch-edit-patch patch 95_newupstreamfix 90_ctrlkeyfix

dpatch-edit-patch: * debian/patches/95_newupstreamfix.dpatch does not exist, it will be created as a new dpatch.
dpatch-edit-patch: * Cleaning /home/david/temp/sopwith-1.6.0
 ...
dpatch-edit-patch: * Applying patches
dpatch-edit-patch: ** Applying patch 90_ctrlkeyfix ... applied cleanly.
dpatch-edit-patch: * Copying /home/david/temp/sopwith-1.6.0 to work directory.
 ...

$ editor files

$ exit 0

dpatch-edit-patch: * Creating new patch debian/patches/95_newupstreamfix.dpatch
dpatch-edit-patch: Warning: debian/patches/00template does not exist, using hardcoded default.
dpatch-edit-patch: debian/patches/95_newupstreamfix.dpatch created.

Create a new patch not depending on existing patches

To create a new patch, intended to be applied before any other patches (or a new patch which doesn't require other patches to be applied first):

$ dpatch-edit-patch 10_debianstrings

dpatch-edit-patch: * debian/patches/10_debianstrings.dpatch does not exist, it will be created as a new dpatch.
dpatch-edit-patch: * Cleaning /home/david/temp/sopwith-1.6.0
 ...
dpatch-edit-patch: Warning: * No base-patch supplied, not applying any patches.
dpatch-edit-patch: * Copying /home/david/temp/sopwith-1.6.0 to work directory.
 ...

$ editor files

$ exit 0

 ...
dpatch-edit-patch: * Creating new patch debian/patches/10_debianstrings.dpatch
dpatch-edit-patch: Warning: debian/patches/00template does not exist, using hardcoded default.
dpatch-edit-patch: debian/patches/10_debianstrings.dpatch created.

Edit an existing patch:

$ dpatch-edit-patch 10_debianstrings

dpatch-edit-patch: * debian/patches/10_debianstrings.dpatch exists, this patch will be updated.
dpatch-edit-patch: * Cleaning /home/david/temp/sopwith-1.6.0
 ...
dpatch-edit-patch: * Applying patches
dpatch-edit-patch: * Copying /home/david/temp/sopwith-1.6.0 to work directory.
dpatch-edit-patch: * Applying current 10_debianstrings for editing.
 ...

$ editor files

$ exit 0

dpatch-edit-patch: Updating patch debian/patches/10_debianstrings.dpatch
dpatch-edit-patch: @DPATCH@ tag found, preserving dpatch header.
dpatch-edit-patch: debian/patches/10_debianstrings.dpatch updated.

dpatch-edit-patch uses the DEBFULLNAME environment variable as the author's name. If it is unset, the author name will be left blank.

dpatch-edit-patch determines the author's email address for new patches using the following algorithm:

1) Should the DEBEMAIL environment variable exist, it is always used.

2) If the EMAIL environment variable exists, it will be used when DEBEMAIL does not exist.

3) Should neither of the first two attempts succeed, the email will be constructed using the login name of the user running dpatch-edit-patch combined with the output of hostname -f.

When dpatch-edit-patch sets up a reference or a working directory, it dereferences all symlinks in the source. That allows relative links to continue working, and allows changes only to a single file and not to the linked file and the link target. If you use dpatch-edit-patch on source trees that have symbolic links, you might end up with a patch that is unapplyable to the original tree.

debian/patches/00dpatch.conf, ~/.dpatch.conf.

dpatch(1), dpatch(7), dpatch.make(7), dpatch-list-patch(1), dpatch-convert-diffgz(1)

Files in /usr/share/doc/dpatch/

This manual page was written by David B Harris <[email protected]> and modified in the course of development by Gergely Nagy <[email protected]>, Marc Haber <[email protected]>, Stefano Zacchiroli <[email protected]>, and Junichi Uekawa <[email protected]>.