Bug in patch 2.5.4 or its documentation

[Derek R. Price]

As near as I can read the man page, files should be created by patch if the
original is listed as /dev/null or is empty and has a creation time of the Epoch
(1970-01-01  00:00:00  UTC), regardless of whether --posix has been specified 
(it
claims --posix will cause patch to conform to the POSIX.2 specification).

Depending on the POSIX.2 specification, which I don't have access to, this
appears to be either a documentation or an implementation bug.


     [dprice@empress temp]$ echo a line >tmp
     [dprice@empress temp]$ diff -cN /dev/null tmp >tmp.diff
     [dprice@empress temp]$ cd test
     [dprice@empress test]$ patch --posix -p0 <../tmp.diff
     can't find file to patch at input line 3
     Perhaps you used the wrong -p or --strip option?
     The text leading up to this was:
     --------------------------
     |*** /dev/null Thu Aug 24 05:00:32 2000
     |--- tmp Thu Feb  8 13:58:29 2001
     --------------------------
     File to patch:

This happens using context diffs, unified diffs, and regardless of whether the
'-p0' option is supplied to patch.

Derek

--
Derek Price                      CVS Solutions Architect ( http://CVSHome.org )
mailto:dprice@openavenue.com     OpenAvenue ( http://OpenAvenue.com )
--
It is surely time for men to think for themselves, and to throw off the
authority of names so artificially magnified.

                        - Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 1820.