From Linux Man Pages
git-apply - Apply patch on a git index file and a work tree
SYNOPSIS
git-apply [--stat] [--numstat] [--summary] [--check] [--index] [--apply]
[--no-add] [--index-info] [--allow-binary-replacement | --binary]
[-R | --reverse] [--reject] [-z] [-pNUM] [-CNUM] [--inaccurate-eof]
[--whitespace=<nowarn|warn|error|error-all|strip>] [--exclude=PATH]
[--cached] [--verbose] [<patch>...]
DESCRIPTION
Reads supplied diff output and applies it on a git index file and a work tree.
OPTIONS
<patch>...
The files to read patch from. - can be used to read from the standard input.
--stat
Instead of applying the patch, output diffstat for the input. Turns off "apply".
--numstat
Similar to --stat, but shows number of added and deleted lines in decimal notation and pathname without
abbreviation, to make it more machine friendly. Turns off "apply".
--summary
Instead of applying the patch, output a condensed summary of information obtained from git diff extended
headers, such as creations, renames and mode changes. Turns off "apply".
--check
Instead of applying the patch, see if the patch is applicable to the current work tree and/or the index file
and detects errors. Turns off "apply".
--index
When --check is in effect, or when applying the patch (which is the default when none of the options that
disables it is in effect), make sure the patch is applicable to what the current index file records. If the
file to be patched in the work tree is not up-to-date, it is flagged as an error. This flag also causes the
index file to be updated.
--cached
Apply a patch without touching the working tree. Instead, take the cached data, apply the patch, and store
the result in the index, without using the working tree. This implies --index.
--index-info
Newer git-diff output has embedded index information for each blob to help identify the original version that
the patch applies to. When this flag is given, and if the original version of the blob is available locally,
outputs information about them to the standard output.
-R, --reverse
Apply the patch in reverse.
--reject
For atomicity, git-apply(1) by default fails the whole patch and does not touch the working tree when some of
the hunks do not apply. This option makes it apply the parts of the patch that are applicable, and leave the
rejected hunks in corresponding *.rej files.
-z
When showing the index information, do not munge paths, but use NUL terminated machine readable format.
Without this flag, the pathnames output will have TAB, LF, and backslash characters replaced with \t, 0 and
\\, respectively.
-p<n>
Remove <n> leading slashes from traditional diff paths. The default is 1.
-C<n>
Ensure at least <n> lines of surrounding context match before and after each change. When fewer lines of
surrounding context exist they all must match. By default no context is ever ignored.
--unidiff-zero
By default, git-apply(1) expects that the patch being applied is a unified diff with at least one line of
context. This provides good safety measures, but breaks down when applying a diff generated with --unified=0.
To bypass these checks use --unidiff-zero.
Note, for the reasons stated above usage of context-free patches are discouraged.
--apply
If you use any of the options marked "Turns off apply" above, git-apply(1) reads and outputs the information
you asked without actually applying the patch. Give this flag after those flags to also apply the patch.
--no-add
When applying a patch, ignore additions made by the patch. This can be used to extract common part between
two files by first running diff on them and applying the result with this option, which would apply the
deletion part but not addition part.
--allow-binary-replacement, --binary
Historically we did not allow binary patch applied without an explicit permission from the user, and this
flag was the way to do so. Currently we always allow binary patch application, so this is a no-op.
--exclude=<path-pattern>
Don't apply changes to files matching the given path pattern. This can be useful when importing patchsets,
where you want to exclude certain files or directories.
--whitespace=<option>
When applying a patch, detect a new or modified line that ends with trailing whitespaces (this includes a
line that solely consists of whitespaces). By default, the command outputs warning messages and applies the
patch. When git-apply(1) is used for statistics and not applying a patch, it defaults to nowarn. You can use
different <option> to control this behavior:
� nowarn turns off the trailing whitespace warning.
� warn outputs warnings for a few such errors, but applies the patch (default).
� error outputs warnings for a few such errors, and refuses to apply the patch.
� error-all is similar to error but shows all errors.
� strip outputs warnings for a few such errors, strips out the trailing whitespaces and applies the
patch.
--inacurate-eof
Under certain circumstances, some versions of diff do not correctly detect a missing new-line at the end of
the file. As a result, patches created by such diff programs do not record incomplete lines correctly. This
option adds support for applying such patches by working around this bug.
--verbose
Report progress to stderr. By default, only a message about the current patch being applied will be printed.
This option will cause additional information to be reported.
CONFIGURATION
apply.whitespace
When no --whitespace flag is given from the command line, this configuration item is used as the default.
DOCUMENTATION
Documentation by Junio C Hamano
GIT
Part of the git(7) suite
CATEGORY