Ubuntu Manpage: dpatch - patch maintenance system for Debian

NAME

       dpatch - patch maintenance system for Debian

SYNOPSIS

       dpatch [options] command [command-arguments]

DESCRIPTION

       dpatch  is  an  easy  to use patch system for Debian packages, somewhat similar to the dbs
       package, but much simpler to use.

       It lets you store patches and other simple customization templates in  debian/patches  and
       otherwise  does  not  require  much reorganization of your source tree. To get the patches
       applied at build time you simply need to include a makefile snippet and then depend on the
       patch/unpatch  target  in the build or clean stage of debian/rules. For added flexibility,
       you can call /usr/bin/dpatch directly too.

WARNING

       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.

GLOBAL OPTIONS

There are a few options which change the overall behaviour of dpatch, and have an effect
on not only one, but most of the available commands.

These global options are:

--workdir (-d) DIRECTORY
By default, dpatch applies patches to the source tree it was run from. With this
option, one can change that, and tell dpatch to work on a different tree, although
taking the dpatches from the current one.

Note that this will only pass a second argument to dpatch scriptlets, and will not
change to the specified directory. To do that, use the --chdir option explained
below.

--chdir (-c)
When using a different working directory than the current one, change there before
trying to apply patches.

This should be used together with the --workdir option.

--strict (-S)
Enable strict mode, which means that dpatch will bail out early even on warnings
(like when trying to apply a patch which is already applied - normally it will
simply skip it).

--force (-F)
Force the application or deapplication of patches, even if dpatch would normally
skip them because the operation was already done earlier.

--with-cpp
Force the use of cpp. Overrides use of DPATCH_OPTION_CPP=1 option in
debian/patches/00options file.

COMMANDS

Patch handling commands
There is a generic syntax for all patch handling commands, namely that, that the command
itself takes a list of dpatch names to work with, then does what it is meant to do on all
of them, in the exact same order it was specified on the command line.

Then, there is a version of each patch handling command with an -all suffix, which does
not take any arguments, and performs the necessary action for each and every available
dpatch.

The last variation is a command with a -until or -up-to suffix, which takes only one
argument: the name of a dpatch. The appropriate action will be performed on all dpatches
up to and including this specified one.

apply [options]
patch [options]
Applies one or more dpatches to the working tree (the current directory, if not
told otherwise). By default the specified patches will be applied in the exact same
order they were specified.

Options
--stampdir=directory, -s=directory
Put stamp files into directory instead of the default debian/patched.
--help (-h)
Print a short help message about the command.
--quiet (-q)
Forces the command to not print anything.
--verbose (-v)
Disables hiding of the scriptlet output.

deapply [options]
unpatch [options]
Deapplies one or more dpatches to the working tree (the current directory, if not
told otherwise). By default the specified patches will be deapplied in the reverse
order they were specified as one generally should deapply in reverse order
(compared to the apply order, that is).

Options
--stampdir=directory, -s=directory
Use stamp files in directory instead of the default debian/patched.
--help (-h)
Print a short help message about the command.
--quiet (-q)
Forces the command to not print anything.
--verbose (-v)
Disables hiding of the scriptlet output.

cat [options]
Print meta-information about a dpatch, such as its name, author and description
(any of which can be disabled with the appropriate option).

Options
--no-meta, --desc-only (-nm, -d)
Only print the patch description.
--author-only (-a)
Only print the author of the patch.
--no-desc, (-nd)
Do not print the patch description.
--help (-h)
Print a short help message about the command.
--quiet (-q)
Forces the command to not print anything.

list [options]
List the name of the given patches. This commands is not really useful, except the
list-all variant, which lists all available patches.

Options
--help (-h)
Print a short help message about the command.

status [options]
Prints the status of the given patches - whether they are applied to the working
tree or not.

log [options]
Displays the log of the given patching attempts.

call [options]
Call a dpatch with a user-specified argument. All arguments with a pkg- prefix is
guaranteed to be unused by dpatch itself, and are reserved for use with this very
command.

This command is most useful for extracting custom meta-information from dpatch
scriptlets.

Options
--argument=arg (-a=arg)
Call patches with arg as argument.
--help (-h)
Print a short help message about the command.
--quiet (-q)
Forces the command to not print anything.

Miscellaneous commands
patch-template [options] [patchname] [description]
Print a quasi-standard dpatch script template, based on the information give on the
command-line. If a description given, it will be folded at about 72 characters into
multiple lines appropriately.

When prepending the template to STDIN, the contents of the standard input will be
printed right after the template.

Options
--prepend (-p)
Prepend the template to STDIN.
--help (-h)
Print a short help message about the command.

help (--help, -h) [command]
Attempt to give a little more detailed help about dpatch itself, or about a given
dpatch command.

version
Prints the dpatch version number and exits.

DPATCH IN DEBIAN PACKAGES

       There are two different ways to use  dpatch  in  debian/rules:  calling  it  directly,  or
       including  dpatch.make(7).  Only the former method will be described here - the latter has
       its own manual page.

       NOTE: The following examples also require adding the .NOTPARALLEL  flag  to  the  head  of
       debian/rules  since  the  dependency  lists  rely  on  the order of the execution. Without
       .NOTPARALLEL, they execution order may  be  wrong  with  multiple  make  threads  (the  -j
       option).

       In  most  situations,  one  will  want  to run dpatch as soon during the build process, as
       possible. How that can be accomplished  depends  heavily  on  the  existing  debian/rules.
       However, in common practice most packages have a build (or build-stamp), config.status, or
       configure (or configure-stamp) target. The easiest way to make dpatching  the  very  first
       thing,  one  only  has  to  write  a  rule  that  calls  dpatch, and add it to the list of
       prerequisites for the appropriate target (see above).

       Deapplying dpatches can be easy or a bit more tricky. If nothing in the clean rule touches
       files  modified by dpatches (creating incompatible changes), you can safely add unpatch to
       the list of the clean rules dependencies.

       If the patches might affect the build system, they should be deapplied  after  the  source
       tree has been cleaned. To do this, rename the clean target to, say, clean-patched, write a
       rule that calls dpatch to deapply the dpatches,  and  make  a  new  clean  rule  that  has
       clean-patched and unpatch as its prerequisites.

       Let  us  look  at  an  example!  First,  let us look at the relevant parts of the original
       debian/rules of our imaginary package:

              config.status: configure
                   ./configure --prefix=/usr --mandir=/usr/share
              build: config.status
                   ${MAKE}
              clean:
                   $(testdir)
                   $(testroot)
                   ${MAKE} distclean
                   rm -rf debian/imaginary-package debian/files debian/substvars

       After dpatchifying, this would look like this:

              config.status: patch configure
                   ./configure --prefix=/usr --mandir=/usr/share
              build: config.status
                   ${MAKE}
              clean: clean-patched unpatch
              clean-patched:
                   $(testdir)
                   $(testroot)
                   ${MAKE} distclean
                   rm -rf debian/imaginary-package debian/files debian/substvars

              patch: patch-stamp
              patch-stamp:
                   dpatch apply-all
                   dpatch cat-all >patch-stamp

              unpatch:
                   dpatch deapply-all
                   rm -rf patch-stamp debian/patched

   Adding dpatch scriptlets to a package
       When using dpatch, one surely wants to tell the system what dpatches to apply,  and  which
       ones  to  discard.  In  the most common situation, one only needs to list the names of the
       dpatches (the  filenames  relative  to  debian/patches)  in  debian/patches/00list.   They
       usually  have  the  extension  .dpatch  and  the  extension  can  be  omitted, thus a file
       debian/patches/01_one_patch.dpatch is written as 01_one_patch inside debian/patches/00list

       However, there may be situations where something more flexible is  needed,  like  applying
       the  same  patch  on  only  two architectures, say, m68k and powerpc. One solve this in at
       least  two  very  different  ways:   One   is   to   list   the   same   patch   in   both
       debian/patches/00list.m68k   and   debian/patches/00list.powerpc,  the  other  is  to  use
       DPATCH_OPTION_CPP=1 in  debian/patches/00options.   00list  file  is  passed  through  cpp
       command     with    DEB_BUILD_ARCH    variable    set    to    the    architecture,    and
       DEB_BUILD_ARCH_architecture being set to 1.  With cpp,  our  sample  debian/patches/00list
       might look like this:

              01_manpage_typo
              #if defined(DEB_BUILD_ARCH_m68k) || defined(DEB_BUILD_ARCH_powerpc)
              /* This patch fixes a random build-time breakage on Macintosh boxen. */
              02_macintosh_foo
              #endif

   Creating dpatch scriptlets
       There  are many ways to create dpatch scriptlets. They are simple, executable files, which
       follow a standardised calling convention (documented in dpatch(7)).

       You can fire up your $EDITOR, or use dpatch-edit-patch, and you should be all set.

       For most cases, where the dpatch file is only to apply a simple patch, there  is  an  even
       easier way:

              dpatch patch-template -p "01_some_patch" "A random patch" \
                   <random.diff >debian/patches/01_some_patch.dpatch

FILES

       debian/patches/00list
              The list of patches to apply, deapply, or otherwise fiddle with.

       debian/patches/00list.arch
              List   of   patches   to   work   with   -  additionally  to  the  common  list  in
              debian/patches/00list -, when building on the arch architecture.

       /etc/dpatch.conf
              System-wide configuration file for dpatch, for setting global options permanently.

       ~/.dpatch.conf
              Per-user configuration file, for setting global options permanently.

AUTHORS

       dpatch was written by Joerg Jaspert, David B Harris,  Gergely  Nagy,  Junichi  Uekawa  and
       others.

       This manual page was written by Gergely Nagy, and updated by Junichi Uekawa