Can someone explain how to patch in layman's terms?

I too am a bit rusty when it comes to some of this patching and diff stuff.

I tried to get my head around patching and am almost there..but, for the duration..I tend to do this:

1. Run a notepad or texteditor that displays line numbers (I use crimson editor which is free, easy to use, colour highlights php and shows line numbers which is very handy when patching or doing stuff with drupal modules)
2. open up the current.module file
3. open up the patch file in another window
4. In the patch file in the very first column there is a + plus sign indicating lines you have to add in and a - minus sign indicating lines to delete.
5. it should be fairly intuitive with the two files open beside each other.
6. if the patch file is quite short, I simply follow it line by line and ALT + TAB between the two documents deleting/adding lines where necessary using copy/paste or the delete option
7. when the current.module is "patched" or manually updated, I upload it, cross my fingers and hope for the best!

the above is obviously very laborious when dealing with large patches...but, it works. Most patches are relatively small and take about 5/10 minutes to do manually.

To automatically PATCH a file is quite a routine thing to do on linux/unix apparantly, but I'm on a PC using Windows XP.

I downloaded a programme called WINMERGE (freebie) which is for the PC and has patch/merge and various tools to do this stuff. So if the patch is lenghty and you don't mind playing with winmerge..download it and have a go. I'm playing with it when I have some spare moments and will type up a simple patching for dummies handbook page when I've sussed it.

In the meantime, I hope that helps..

Dub

Many (maybe even all) of you have had this whole patch thing explained to you. That is all I am asking for here. You all had to start somewhere and that is what I am trying to do.

I don't think anyone has had this stuff explained to them. It's a process of trial and error and poring over every document available, making notes, then Googling for things you don't understand and reading/playing some more until it all starts to make sense. If you don't have at least some basics behind you (i.e. 'where is the command line') before you engage in this process, and moreover are unwilling/unable to do research on your part to look into things you do not understand, you're going to run into a very difficult time, and it will be very frustrating for others to help you.

I see a lot of "what to type" and a lot of references to a command line. Where is this? If it is on my host, how can I get to it? Let's start there.

1. Check to see if your host a) is a Linux/BSD host, and b) has a feature called "shell access." Places to check for this include a FAQ/Knowledge base if your host has one, on a plan comparison page, or by contacting their support directly.
2. If so, go to Start > Run, enter cmd and hit OK. This brings up a "command prompt" (the same thing as "command line").
3. Type in telnet example.com, where example.com is your domain.
4. Enter your username and password when prompted. This is normally the same username/password you use for your FTP account, but check with your host to make sure.

This will give you have a command prompt, from which you can enter the commands referenced in the various handbook documents.

If you don't have a host with shell access, which is very possible, then you'll need to patch the files on your own computer and then FTP (or however you move files to your host) the changed files over the original files. This is a very cumbersome process. The best way in my opinion to do this is with a program called Cygwin, which creates a Linux environment running right under Windows...this way all of the Linux-based commands in the handbook files will work without modification. There are also Windows patch utilities (WinMerge is one, as mentioned below), but then you need to basically teach yourself how to do everything that's in the handbook since it's geared toward "normal" commands and not a specific tool.

Hi Stompdancer...

As a pointer...here's a small patch file example to illustrate what to do:

1    --- ../../../../../../tmp/kde-sj/quantaLVMlacHEAD 
2 	2005-08-29 21:21:35.092684696 +0200
3   +++ flexinode.module	2005-08-29 21:20:53.751969440 4   +0200 
5   @@ -493,12 +493,12 @@
6   }
7 
8   /**
9   - * Implementation of hook_node_types().
10 + * Implementation of hook_node().
11  */
12 -function flexinode_node_types() {
13 +function flexinode_node() {
14   $types = array();
15 -  foreach (flexinode_content_types() as $type => $name) {
16 -    $types[] = 'flexinode-' . $type;
17 +  foreach (flexinode_content_types() as $type => object) 
18 +    $types["flexinode-$type"] = array('name' => $object->name, 'base' => 'flexinode');
19   }
20   return $types;
21 }

Patching.

1. line 6 to line 8 : leave as is
2. delete line 9 and insert line 10 in it's place
3. line 11: leave as is
4. Remove line 12 and insert line 13 in it's place
5. Line 14: leave as is
6. Renmove the lines 15 and 16 and insert lines 17 and 18 in their place
7. line 19, 20 and 21: leave as is

The lines with no + (plus) or - (minus) signes are used to illustrate context. i.e. inserting line number 18 would be made more difficult if you didn't know what the next line was. so it's shown in the patch file to give context.

The @@ -493,12 +493,12 @@ on line 5 gives you a clue to what the line numbers are that need editing as they appear in the full module your patching.

In a large module, to help find the corresponding lines in the module to be patched...I tend to just do a text search for the line that needs changing..so in the example above I would search for * Implementation of hook_node_types()..

I hope that makes sense

Dub