This is GNU patch, which applies diff files to original files.
This version of patch has many changes made by the Free Software Foundation.
They add support for:
* handling arbitrary binary data and large files
* the unified context diff format that GNU diff can produce
* merging into files instead of creating reject files
* making GNU Emacs-style backup files
* improved interaction with RCS and SCCS
* the GNU conventions for option parsing and configuring and compilation.
* better POSIX compliance
They also fix some bugs.
If you obtained this file as part of a "git clone", then see the
README-hacking file. If this file came to you as part of a tar archive,
then see the file INSTALL for compilation and installation instructions.
See the file NEWS for a list of major changes in the current release.
A more detailed descripiton of all changes can be found in the file ChangeLog
in tar archives, and with "git log" which shows the version control history.
Tutorial-style documentation for patch is included in the GNU
Diffutils package; get GNU Diffutils 2.8 or later for up-to-date
documentation for patch.
Use `configure --disable-largefile' to disable large file support;
this is reportedly necessary on Red Hat GNU/Linux 6.0 to avoid a C library bug.
For MS-DOS using DJGPP tools, see the file pc/djgpp/README.
For other systems, copy config.hin to config.h and change
#undef statements in it to #define as appropriate for your system,
and copy Makefile.in to Makefile and set the variables that are
enclosed in @ signs as appropriate for your system.
Please send bug reports for this version of patch to
<bug-patch@gnu.org>.
The Free Software Foundation is distributing this version of patch
independently because as of this writing, Larry Wall has not released a
new version of patch since mid-1988. We have heard that he has been
too busy working on other things, like Perl. He has graciously agreed
to let GNU `patch' be distributed under the terms of the GNU General
Public License.
------
Copyright (C) 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988 Larry Wall
Copyright (C) 1989-1993, 1997, 1999, 2002, 2009, 2011-2012 Free Software
Foundation, Inc.
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.