How to generate and apply patches with git? — First published in fullweb.io issue #33

how-to-git-patch-diff.md

How to generate and apply patches with git?

It sometimes happen you need change code on a machine from which you cannot push to the repo. You’re ready to copy/paste what diff outputs to your local working copy.

You think there must be a better way to proceed and you’re right. It’s a simple 2 steps process:

1. Generate the patch:

git diff > some-changes.patch

2. Apply the diff:

Then copy this patch to your local machine, and apply it to your local working copy with:

git apply /path/to/some-changes.patch

And that’s it! The changes are now in your working copy and ready to be staged/commit/pushed :)

@ssi-anik Didn't think about untracked files—I always forget about them when thinking about git command, thanks!

I believe you can simplify your solution even more by using intent-to-add like this:

git add --intent-to-add --all
# or
git add -NA