Maintaining patches on top of source distibution (git) (feddit.nu)

submitted 3 months ago by wax@feddit.nu to c/programming@beehaw.org

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What are some general recommendations to maintain a set of patches on top of a library distributed as a source tarball? Until now I've been adding the versions to a git repository by deleting previous files and adding the new files in a "upstream" branch, then merging that branch into the main branch which contains my patches. This turned into more work than I expected because they started moving files around and renaming in new releases.

I should probably be rebasing instead of merging, but are there any other recommendations for this type of situation?

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[-] blaise@champserver.net 5 points 3 months ago

If you're using linux then check if quilt is available for your distro, it's made specifically to maintain patches on top of a codbase you don't control: https://wiki.debian.org/UsingQuilt

[-] wax@feddit.nu 1 points 3 months ago

Thanks, I'll have a look at quilt. There's also a git command called quiltimport which may be helpful if I want to stay on git.

this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2025

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