Bug: fatal: patch fragment without header at line

Git version: git-1.7.7.6-1.fc16.x86_64

I am getting an error with a patch that I am applying to a git repository.
I have created a test case for this issue that I am facing.

$ git apply --check 0001-modified-README.patch
fatal: patch fragment without header at line 7: @@ -635,9 +635,7 @@
some_function()

Clearly line 7 appears to be a patch but it isn't. It is the part of
email body or the patch context.
To my understanding, the patch should always be identified whenever
the patch block starts
with a "diff --git", which is line 21 as below:

     1	From aa3acc563af0422e6a9f4afc432b7fabdf845d81 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
     2	From: Saleem Ansari [off-list ref]
     3	Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2012 17:42:58 +0530
     4	Subject: [PATCH] modified README
     5	
     6	
     7	@@ -635,9 +635,7 @@ some_function()
     8	
     9	
    10	-       # a comment here
    11	+       not a comment
    12	
    13	
    14	
    15	thats all folks
    16	
    17	---
    18	 README |    1 +
    19	 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
    20	
    21	diff --git a/README b/README
    22	index ce01362..d294257 100644
    23	--- a/README
    24	+++ b/README
    25	@@ -1 +1,2 @@
    26	 hello
    27	+this is a readme
    28	--
    29	1.7.7.6
    30	

Apart from changing the patch itself, how else can I work-around this problem?

Steps to create and verify the testcase:

# Create a temporary directory
mkdir /tmp/bug
cd /tmp/bug
git init .
echo "hello" > README
git commit -m "Initial commit"

# create a test branch for verification later
git checkout -b test

# make changes into a different branch
git checkout -b bugger
echo "this is a readme" > README
git commit -m "modified README"
git format-patch HEAD^ # this will generate 0001-modified-README.patch
# Now inside the patch email body add some random patch which should break
# or download the attachment ( 0001-modified-README.patch )

/tuxdna

On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 07:06:51PM +0530, tuxdna wrote:

Git version: git-1.7.7.6-1.fc16.x86_64

I am getting an error with a patch that I am applying to a git repository.
I have created a test case for this issue that I am facing.

$ git apply --check 0001-modified-README.patch
fatal: patch fragment without header at line 7: @@ -635,9 +635,7 @@
some_function()

Clearly line 7 appears to be a patch but it isn't. It is the part of
email body or the patch context.
To my understanding, the patch should always be identified whenever
the patch block starts
with a "diff --git", which is line 21 as below:

It is identified properly when you use "git am" to apply your patch. It
will use "git mailinfo" to split on the "---" and feed only the bottom
half to "git apply". But as a low-level tool, "git apply" looks for a
patch immediately, and does not know anything about the "---" line. It
is correct to diagnose a possibly broken patch.

Apart from changing the patch itself, how else can I work-around this problem?

Run "git am 0001-modified-README.patch" to parse it correctly. If for
some reason you really do not want to make a commit (e.g., you are going
to squash-apply a bunch of patches together), then either:

  1. Don't use format-patch to generate the patch. Use "git diff-tree",
     which will omit the commit message (which "git apply" would just
     inore anyway).

  2. Use "git mailinfo" to split the patch out of the email format
     generated by format-patch, and then "git apply" the result.

-Peff