Re: git-apply does not work in a sub-directory of a Git repository

[Stefan Beller <sbeller@google.com>]

On Tue, Mar 22, 2016 at 5:10 AM, Mehul Jain <mehul.jain2029@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> Recently while using git-apply, I observed that if git-apply is used in a
> sub-directory of a Git repository then it silently dies without doing
> anything.
>
> Here's what I did
>
> ~ $mkdir example
> ~ $cd example
> example $git init
> Initialized empty Git repository in /home/mj/example/.git/
> example $echo main >main
> example $git add main
> example $git commit -m 'main'
> [master (root-commit) 97aeda3] main
>  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
>  create mode 100644 main
> example $git checkout -b feature
> Switched to a new branch 'feature'
> example $echo modified >main
> example $git add main
> example $git commit -m 'modified'
> [feature 2551fa2] modified
>  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
> example $mkdir outgoing
> example $git diff master >outgoing/feature.patch
> example $git checkout master
> Switched to branch 'master'
> example $cd outgoing/
> outgoing $git apply feature.patch
> outgoing $cd ..
> example $cat main
> main
>
> As you observed, patch wasn't applied. Is it intended behaviour of
> git-apply? Usually to apply the patch I have to copy it to top directory
> and then use git-apply.
>
> I tried out git-am to apply the patch ("git format-patch" was used to
> make patch) while being in the "outgoing" sub-directory and it worked
> fine. So why does git-apply show this kind of behaviour?
>
> Thanks,
> Mehul


Think of git-apply as a specialized version of 'patch', which would also
error out if there are path issues. (Inside outgoing/ there is no file found at
./main)

git-am is the porcelain command which is what is recommended to users
who interact with Git and patches.