Bug: fatal: patch fragment without header at line

Git version: git-1.7.7.6-1.fc16.x86_64

I am getting an error with a patch that I am applying to a git repository. I have created a test case for this issue that I am facing.

$ git apply --check 0001-modified-README.patch fatal: patch fragment without header at line 7: @@ -635,9 +635,7 @@ some_function()

Clearly line 7 appears to be a patch but it isn't. It is the part of email body or the patch context. To my understanding, the patch should always be identified whenever the patch block starts with a "diff --git", which is line 21 as below:

     1	From aa3acc563af0422e6a9f4afc432b7fabdf845d81 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
     2	From: Saleem Ansari <tuxdna@gmail.com>
     3	Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2012 17:42:58 +0530
     4	Subject: [PATCH] modified README
     5	
     6	
     7	@@ -635,9 +635,7 @@ some_function()
     8	
     9	
    10	-       # a comment here
    11	+       not a comment
    12	
    13	
    14	
    15	thats all folks
    16	
    17	---
    18	 README |    1 +
    19	 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
    20	
    21	diff --git a/README b/README
    22	index ce01362..d294257 100644
    23	--- a/README
    24	+++ b/README
    25	@@ -1 +1,2 @@
    26	 hello
    27	+this is a readme
    28	--
    29	1.7.7.6
    30	

Apart from changing the patch itself, how else can I work-around this problem?

Steps to create and verify the testcase:

# Create a temporary directory mkdir /tmp/bug cd /tmp/bug git init . echo "hello" > README git commit -m "Initial commit"

# create a test branch for verification later git checkout -b test

# make changes into a different branch git checkout -b bugger echo "this is a readme" > README git commit -m "modified README" git format-patch HEAD^ # this will generate 0001-modified-README.patch # Now inside the patch email body add some random patch which should break # or download the attachment ( 0001-modified-README.patch )

/tuxdna

From aa3acc563af0422e6a9f4afc432b7fabdf845d81 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Saleem Ansari <tuxdna@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2012 17:42:58 +0530
Subject: [PATCH] modified README