GNU Info

(diff.info)Imperfect

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Applying Imperfect Patches
==========================

   `patch' tries to skip any leading text in the patch file, apply the
diff, and then skip any trailing text.  Thus you can feed a news article
or mail message directly to `patch', and it should work.  If the entire
diff is indented by a constant amount of white space, `patch'
automatically ignores the indentation.

   However, certain other types of imperfect input require user
intervention.

Changed White Space

When tabs and spaces don't match exactly.

Reversed Patches

Applying reversed patches correctly.

Inexact

Helping `patch' find close matches.