On 21/05/15 15:59, Isaac Dunham wrote:
> On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 02:08:23PM +0200, Anto wrote:
>> Another question is about generating the patch files to be added into
>> debian/patches directory. What I have been doing so far are the followings,
>> to get the patch files which look similar to the official patches:
>>
>> 1. Create "a" and "b" directory
>>
>> 2. Copy the files from the original source package including their directory
>> structures, into "a" and "b" directories
>>

>>     If the file does not exist on the original sourcepackage, only generate
>> its directory structure on "a" directory and put the new file on "b"
>> directory under the same directory structure

>>
>> 3. Modify only the files on "b" directory
>>
>> 4. Run "git diff --no-prefix --no-index a/ b/ > <name of the patch>.patch"
>>
>> I am sure that is not the proper way to do it. So could you please let me
>> know how to properly build the patches, especially for off-line purpose so
>> no local and remote git repositories?
> * The standard tool for Debian packages is "quilt", which needs a litle
> bit of setup to make it use debian/patches.
> You will need to "add" files that you want to edit *before* changing them.
>
> * git's default format is:
> --- a/
> +++ b/
>
> You do not need to do anything other than make sure that everything has
> been committed to git before you start editing; git will store the contents
> of the repository internally.
>
> HTH,
> Isaac Dunham
>

Thanks Isaac,

Yes, I saw that quilt is always mentioned on Debian documentation for
packaging but I don't see the advantage of using it. So I have never
started to set it up just for the purpose of generating the patch
containing the changes on a few files. I think git has more advantages
and it is more relevant to Devuan gitlab so I will learn more about it.

Cheers,

Anto