Re: being nice to patch(1)

Linus Torvalds [off-list ref] writes:

Anyway, I tried to look at the patch sources, but I had to stop. That 
whole "intuit_diff_type()" function is probably designed as an initiation 
rite for any patch programmers, and to make sure that you have to be 
really serious about wanting to send patches before you can become part of 
the "in crowd". It's "mental hazing".

You should have seen it in the good old days when Larry Wall wrote it.
It was at least -- at least! -- 10% worse.

In this case, the improvement would be to simply ignore indented patches 
(preferably by default, but at least have the option to do so).

I agree.  POSIX has tied our hands to some extent, though, since it
_requires_ patch to accept indented patches by default.  It's too late
to fix this in the current POSIX go-round, but we can fix it in the
next.  And in the mean time we can add an option, I suppose defaulting
to not stripping indentation unless POSIXLY_CORRECT is set.  That
would be fine with me.

I'll add it to my list of things to do.