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(diff.info)Changed White Space

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Applying Patches with Changed White Space
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   Sometimes mailers, editors, or other programs change spaces into
tabs, or vice versa.  If this happens to a patch file or an input file,
the files might look the same, but `patch' will not be able to match
them properly.  If this problem occurs, use the `-l' or
`--ignore-white-space' option, which makes `patch' compare white space
loosely so that any sequence of white space in the patch file matches
any sequence of white space in the input files.  Non-white-space
characters must still match exactly.  Each line of the context must
still match a line in the input file.