Recipe 91: Creating a Patch

Note

Ingredients

Diff utility

Regardless of your Drupal programming skill level, you may submit patches to the Drupal issue queue. Module maintainers and users will appreciate patches ranging from spelling corrections, to more complex bug fixes and new features. Patches may be created with the diff command or the CVS diff command. The example below uses diff.

1. Backup the file intended for editing.

   cp views_ui.module views_ui.module.backup

2. Edit the file with the editor of your choice.

   vim views_ui.module
   

3. Run the diff command to create a patch. Notice that the command uses the -u and -p switches and compares the original file (first) to the edited file (second). The diff is then redirected to an output file, usually named with a .patch extension.

   diff -up views_ui.module.backup views_ui.module > views_ui.module.patch
   

   Note

   Patch command switches

   The - u switch in the patch command stands for unified context diff, which is the desired format for Drupal patches. In addition...