Bug Report for git apply

Can Gemicioglu· Apr 11, 2019, 19:16 UTC · lore

Hi,

I noticed a problem when trying to apply a patch file that contained many separate patches in a single file. Trying to apply this patch gave me a "No such file or directory" error for one of the files in the middle and after looking around I realised this file was also created earlier in the patch. I tested this myself with these steps and saw a similar error:

1. Create a new file and commit.
2. Move the file to a different folder and commit.
3. Create a single patch for these 2 commits by using git format-patch and concatenating the two resulting files (01.patch, 02.patch) into one (combined.patch).
4. Roll back to 2 commits earlier.

At that point if I try to use 'git apply combined.patch', it will throw the same no such file error. However, if I use 'git am combined.patch' instead it works. If I apply the first 2 patches separately instead, using 'git apply 0*' it also works but if I first try to check if it will work with 'git apply --check 0*' it actually throws the same error again.

I'm guessing there's something like a check to make sure the file exists that throws an error even if the file was going to be created by previous commits.

Tested on git version 2.21.0 on Ubuntu 18.04

Best, Can Gemicioglu

SZEDER Gábor· Apr 11, 2019, 20:17 UTC · re: Can Gemicioglu · lore

Re: Bug Report for git apply

On Thu, Apr 11, 2019 at 03:16:22PM -0400, Can Gemicioglu wrote:

> I noticed a problem when trying to apply a patch file that contained
> many separate patches in a single file.

To quote the first line of its manpage :) 'git apply' is meant to "Apply a patch to files and/or to the index". Note the singular "a patch"; not multiple patches in the same or multiple files.

Use 'git am' instead, that is its job, and as you noted, it works.

Show 20 quoted lines

> Trying to apply this patch gave me a "No such file or directory" error for one of the files in the middle and after looking around I realised this file was also created earlier in the patch. I tested this myself with these steps and saw a similar error:
> 
> 1. Create a new file and commit.
> 2. Move the file to a different folder and commit.
> 3. Create a single patch for these 2 commits by using git format-patch and concatenating the two resulting files (01.patch, 02.patch) into one (combined.patch).
> 4. Roll back to 2 commits earlier.
> 
> At that point if I try to use 'git apply combined.patch', it will
> throw the same no such file error. However, if I use 'git am
> combined.patch' instead it works. If I apply the first 2 patches
> separately instead, using 'git apply 0*' it also works but if I
> first try to check if it will work with 'git apply --check 0*' it
> actually throws the same error again.
> 
> I'm guessing there's something like a check to make sure the file exists that throws an error even if the file was going to be created by previous commits.
> 
> Tested on git version 2.21.0 on Ubuntu 18.04
> 
> Best,
> Can Gemicioglu