Re: How to edit/modify patches using emacs?

[Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org>]

Pascal Bourguignon <pjb@informatimago.com> writes:
> You can force edit it (see the other answers), but I think the best
> way to "edit" a patch, is to duplicate the source directory, apply the
> patch on one copy, edit this copy of the source files, then invoke
> diff  to create a new patch.

Note that editing a patch with emacs `diff-mode' active is actually
fairly painless, because diff-mode takes care of keeping details like
the line counts updated, offers convenient functions like hunk-
splitting, makes it super easy to test your changes, etc.  I regularly
edit patches directly because of diff-mode.

[A common reason to edit a patch is because it _won't_ apply otherwise:
you basically look at the patch to see why doesn't match the source,
edit the patch to test your guess, and if it then applies cleanly,
you've got a nice record in the edited patch.]

-Miles
-- 
"Suppose we've chosen the wrong god. Every time we go to church we're
just making him madder and madder." -- Homer Simpson