How to apply a patch generated with git format-patch?

git patch
silverburgh picture silverburgh · Feb 12, 2010 · Viewed 228.9k times · Source

I have 2 git local repositories both pointing to the same remote repository.

In one git repository, if I do git format-patch 1, how can I apply that patch to the other repository?

Answer

VonC picture VonC · Feb 12, 2010

Note: You can first preview what your patch will do:

First the stats:

git apply --stat a_file.patch

Then a dry run to detect errors:

git apply --check a_file.patch

Finally, you can use git am to apply your patch as a commit: it allows you to sign off an applied patch.
This can be useful for later reference.

git am --signoff < a_file.patch

See an example in this article:

In your git log, you’ll find that the commit messages contain a “Signed-off-by” tag. This tag will be read by Github and others to provide useful info about how the commit ended up in the code.

Example

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