This version of patch contains modifications made by the Free Software
Foundation, summarized in the file ChangeLog.  Primarily they are to
support the unified context diff format that GNU diff can produce, and
to support making GNU Emacs-style backup files.  They also include
fixes for some bugs.

There are two GNU variants of patch: this one, which retains Larry
Wall's interactive Configure script and has patchlevels starting with
`12u'; and another one that has a GNU-style non-interactive configure
script and accepts long-named options, and has patchlevels starting
with `12g'.  Unlike the 12g variant, the 12u variant contains no
copylefted code, for the paranoid.  The two variants are otherwise the
same.  They should be available from the same places.

The FSF is distributing this version of patch independently because as
of this writing, Larry Wall has not released a new version of patch
since mid-1988.  I have heard that he has been too busy working on
other things, like Perl.

Here is a wish list of some projects to improve patch:

1.  Correctly handle files and patchfiles that contain NUL characters.
This is hard to do straightforwardly; it would be less work to
adopt a kind of escape encoding internally.
Let ESC be a "control prefix".  ESC @ stands for NUL.  ESC [ stands for ESC.
You need to crunch this when reading input (replace fgets),
and when writing the output file (replace fputs),
but otherwise everything can go along as it does now.
Be careful to handle reject files correctly;
I think they are currently created using `write', not `fputs'.

2.  Correctly handle patches produced by GNU diff for files that do
not end with a newline.

Please send bug reports for this version of patch to
bug-gnu-utils@prep.ai.mit.edu as well as to Larry Wall (lwall@netlabs.com).
 --djm@gnu.ai.mit.edu (David MacKenzie)

			Patch Kit, Version 2.0

		    Copyright (c) 1988, Larry Wall

You may copy the patch kit in whole or in part as long as you don't try to
make money off it, or pretend that you wrote it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please read all the directions below before you proceed any further, and
then follow them carefully.  Failure to do so may void your warranty. :-)

After you have unpacked your kit, you should have all the files listed
in MANIFEST.

Installation

1)  Run Configure.  This will figure out various things about your system.
    Some things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will
    ask you about.  It will then proceed to make config.h, config.sh, and
    Makefile.

    You might possibly have to trim # comments from the front of Configure
    if your sh doesn't handle them, but all other # comments will be taken
    care of.

    If you don't have sh, you'll have to rip the prototype of config.h out
    of Configure and generate the defines by hand.

2)  Glance through config.h to make sure system dependencies are correct.
    Most of them should have been taken care of by running the
    Configure script. 

    If you have any additional changes to make to the C definitions, they
    can be done in the Makefile, or in config.h.  Bear in mind that they may
    get undone next time you run Configure.

3)  make

    This will attempt to make patch in the current directory.

4)  make install

    This will put patch into a public directory (normally /usr/local/bin).
    It will also try to put the man pages in a reasonable place.  It will not
    nroff the man page, however.

5)  Read the manual entry before running patch.

6)  IMPORTANT!  Help save the world!  Communicate any problems and
    suggested patches to me, lwall@netlabs.com (Larry Wall),
    so we can keep the world in sync.  If you have a problem, there's
    someone else out there who either has had or will have the same problem.

    If possible, send in patches such that the patch program will apply them.
    Context diffs are the best, then normal diffs.  Don't send ed scripts--
    I've probably changed my copy since the version you have.

    Watch for patch patches in comp.sources.bugs.  Patches will generally be
    in a form usable by the patch program.  Your current patch level
    is shown in patchlevel.h.