On Tue, 09 Mar 1999 23:39:35 -0500, Steve Philp wrote:
>Rick Keefer wrote:
>>
>> Hey all,
>>
>> Well here's another newbie question. What is a patch and how is it installed?
>
>A patch is a small (or in the case of some kernel patches, rather large)
>piece of source code that you apply to your current source code.
>
>Say I'm developing a piece of software and have a number of people who
>are using it. I make the source code to my program available for them
>to download, compile and install. It could be a pretty hefty download
>to grab it the first time. When I make a fix or add a feature to my
>program, it's wasteful to ask everyone to download ALL of the code
>again, so I create a patch. Put simply, a patch file contains the
>differences between my old version of the code and my new version.
>
>My users download the small patch, use the patch program to apply it to
>my source code, and now we're all working from the updated code.
>
>All in all, it's a really useful tool (and comes from the author of
>another useful tool, Larry Wall of Perl fame).
>
>--
>Steve Philp
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
Thanks Steve for the information. Now what is the patch program you mentioned?? How
is it used?
Rick
