Patch is a text file, whose contents are similar to Git diff, but along with code, it also has metadata about commits; e.g., commit ID, date, commit message, etc. We can create a patch from commits and other people can apply them to their repository.

Jerry implements the strcat function for his project. Jerry can create a path of his code and send it to Tom. Then, he can apply the received patch to his code.

Jerry uses the Git format-patch command to create a patch for the latest commit. If you want to create a patch for a specific commit, then use COMMIT_ID with the format-patch command.

[jerry@CentOS project]$ pwd
/home/jerry/jerry_repo/project/src

[jerry@CentOS src]$ git status -s
M string_operations.c
?? string_operations

[jerry@CentOS src]$ git add string_operations.c

[jerry@CentOS src]$ git commit -m "Added my_strcat function"

[master b4c7f09] Added my_strcat function
1 files changed, 13 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)

[jerry@CentOS src]$ git format-patch -1
0001-Added-my_strcat-function.patch

The above command creates .patch files inside the current working directory. Tom can use this patch to modify his files. Git provides two commands to apply patches git amand git apply, respectively. Git apply modifies the local files without creating commit, while git am modifies the file and creates commit as well.

To apply patch and create commit, use the following command −

[tom@CentOS src]$ pwd
/home/tom/top_repo/project/src

[tom@CentOS src]$ git diff

[tom@CentOS src]$ git status –s

[tom@CentOS src]$ git apply 0001-Added-my_strcat-function.patch

[tom@CentOS src]$ git status -s
M string_operations.c
?? 0001-Added-my_strcat-function.patch

The patch gets applied successfully, now we can view the modifications by using the git diff command.

[tom@CentOS src]$ git diff

The above command will produce the following result −

diff --git a/src/string_operations.c b/src/string_operations.c
index 8ab7f42..f282fcf 100644
--- a/src/string_operations.c
+++ b/src/string_operations.c
@@ -1,5 +1,16 @@
#include <stdio.h>
+char *my_strcat(char *t, char *s)
diff --git a/src/string_operations.c b/src/string_operations.c
index 8ab7f42..f282fcf 100644
--- a/src/string_operations.c
+++ b/src/string_operations.c
@@ -1,5 +1,16 @@
#include <stdio.h>
+char *my_strcat(char *t, char *s)
+
{
   +
   char *p = t;
   +
   +
   +
   while (*p)
   ++p;
   +
   while (*p++ = *s++)
   + ;
   + return t;
   +
}
+
size_t my_strlen(const char *s)
{
   const char *p = s;
   @@ -23,6 +34,7 @@ int main(void)
   {