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TLDR: git-apply (tldr-pages)

Apply a patch to files and/or to the index without creating a commit.

  • Print messages about the patched files
    git apply {{-v|--verbose}} {{path/to/file}}
  • Apply and add the patched files to the index
    git apply --index {{path/to/file}}
  • Apply a remote patch file
    curl {{-L|--location}} {{https://example.com/file.patch}} | git apply
  • Output diffstat for the input and apply the patch
    git apply --stat --apply {{path/to/file}}
  • Apply the patch in reverse
    git apply {{-R|--reverse}} {{path/to/file}}
  • Store the patch result in the index without modifying the working tree
    git apply --cache {{path/to/file}}
GIT-APPLY(1)                                 Git Manual                                 GIT-APPLY(1)



NAME
       git-apply - Apply a patch to files and/or to the index

SYNOPSIS
       git apply [--stat] [--numstat] [--summary] [--check] [--index | --intent-to-add] [--3way]
                 [--apply] [--no-add] [--build-fake-ancestor=<file>] [-R | --reverse]
                 [--allow-binary-replacement | --binary] [--reject] [-z]
                 [-p<n>] [-C<n>] [--inaccurate-eof] [--recount] [--cached]
                 [--ignore-space-change | --ignore-whitespace]
                 [--whitespace=(nowarn|warn|fix|error|error-all)]
                 [--exclude=<path>] [--include=<path>] [--directory=<root>]
                 [--verbose] [--unsafe-paths] [<patch>...]


DESCRIPTION
       Reads the supplied diff output (i.e. "a patch") and applies it to files. When running from a
       subdirectory in a repository, patched paths outside the directory are ignored. With the
       --index option the patch is also applied to the index, and with the --cached option the patch
       is only applied to the index. Without these options, the command applies the patch only to
       files, and does not require them to be in a Git repository.

       This command applies the patch but does not create a commit. Use git-am(1) to create commits
       from patches generated by git-format-patch(1) and/or received by email.

OPTIONS
       <patch>...
           The files to read the patch from.  - can be used to read from the standard input.

       --stat
           Instead of applying the patch, output diffstat for the input. Turns off "apply".

       --numstat
           Similar to --stat, but shows the number of added and deleted lines in decimal notation
           and the pathname without abbreviation, to make it more machine friendly. For binary
           files, outputs two - instead of saying 0 0. Turns off "apply".

       --summary
           Instead of applying the patch, output a condensed summary of information obtained from
           git diff extended headers, such as creations, renames and mode changes. Turns off
           "apply".

       --check
           Instead of applying the patch, see if the patch is applicable to the current working tree
           and/or the index file and detects errors. Turns off "apply".

       --index
           Apply the patch to both the index and the working tree (or merely check that it would
           apply cleanly to both if --check is in effect). Note that --index expects index entries
           and working tree copies for relevant paths to be identical (their contents and metadata
           such as file mode must match), and will raise an error if they are not, even if the patch
           would apply cleanly to both the index and the working tree in isolation.

       --cached
           Apply the patch to just the index, without touching the working tree. If --check is in
           effect, merely check that it would apply cleanly to the index entry.

       --intent-to-add
           When applying the patch only to the working tree, mark new files to be added to the index
           later (see --intent-to-add option in git-add(1)). This option is ignored unless running
           in a Git repository and --index is not specified. Note that --index could be implied by
           other options such as --cached or --3way.

       -3, --3way
           Attempt 3-way merge if the patch records the identity of blobs it is supposed to apply to
           and we have those blobs available locally, possibly leaving the conflict markers in the
           files in the working tree for the user to resolve. This option implies the --index option
           unless the --cached option is used, and is incompatible with the --reject option. When
           used with the --cached option, any conflicts are left at higher stages in the cache.

       --build-fake-ancestor=<file>
           Newer git diff output has embedded index information for each blob to help identify the
           original version that the patch applies to. When this flag is given, and if the original
           versions of the blobs are available locally, builds a temporary index containing those
           blobs.

           When a pure mode change is encountered (which has no index information), the information
           is read from the current index instead.

       -R, --reverse
           Apply the patch in reverse.

       --reject
           For atomicity, git apply by default fails the whole patch and does not touch the working
           tree when some of the hunks do not apply. This option makes it apply the parts of the
           patch that are applicable, and leave the rejected hunks in corresponding *.rej files.

       -z
           When --numstat has been given, do not munge pathnames, but use a NUL-terminated
           machine-readable format.

           Without this option, pathnames with "unusual" characters are quoted as explained for the
           configuration variable core.quotePath (see git-config(1)).

       -p<n>
           Remove <n> leading path components (separated by slashes) from traditional diff paths.
           E.g., with -p2, a patch against a/dir/file will be applied directly to file. The default
           is 1.

       -C<n>
           Ensure at least <n> lines of surrounding context match before and after each change. When
           fewer lines of surrounding context exist they all must match. By default no context is
           ever ignored.

       --unidiff-zero
           By default, git apply expects that the patch being applied is a unified diff with at
           least one line of context. This provides good safety measures, but breaks down when
           applying a diff generated with --unified=0. To bypass these checks use --unidiff-zero.

           Note, for the reasons stated above usage of context-free patches is discouraged.

       --apply
           If you use any of the options marked "Turns off apply" above, git apply reads and outputs
           the requested information without actually applying the patch. Give this flag after those
           flags to also apply the patch.

       --no-add
           When applying a patch, ignore additions made by the patch. This can be used to extract
           the common part between two files by first running diff on them and applying the result
           with this option, which would apply the deletion part but not the addition part.

       --allow-binary-replacement, --binary
           Historically we did not allow binary patch applied without an explicit permission from
           the user, and this flag was the way to do so. Currently we always allow binary patch
           application, so this is a no-op.

       --exclude=<path-pattern>
           Don’t apply changes to files matching the given path pattern. This can be useful when
           importing patchsets, where you want to exclude certain files or directories.

       --include=<path-pattern>
           Apply changes to files matching the given path pattern. This can be useful when importing
           patchsets, where you want to include certain files or directories.

           When --exclude and --include patterns are used, they are examined in the order they
           appear on the command line, and the first match determines if a patch to each path is
           used. A patch to a path that does not match any include/exclude pattern is used by
           default if there is no include pattern on the command line, and ignored if there is any
           include pattern.

       --ignore-space-change, --ignore-whitespace
           When applying a patch, ignore changes in whitespace in context lines if necessary.
           Context lines will preserve their whitespace, and they will not undergo whitespace fixing
           regardless of the value of the --whitespace option. New lines will still be fixed,
           though.

       --whitespace=<action>
           When applying a patch, detect a new or modified line that has whitespace errors. What are
           considered whitespace errors is controlled by core.whitespace configuration. By default,
           trailing whitespaces (including lines that solely consist of whitespaces) and a space
           character that is immediately followed by a tab character inside the initial indent of
           the line are considered whitespace errors.

           By default, the command outputs warning messages but applies the patch. When git-apply is
           used for statistics and not applying a patch, it defaults to nowarn.

           You can use different <action> values to control this behavior:

           •   nowarn turns off the trailing whitespace warning.

           •   warn outputs warnings for a few such errors, but applies the patch as-is (default).

           •   fix outputs warnings for a few such errors, and applies the patch after fixing them
               (strip is a synonym --- the tool used to consider only trailing whitespace characters
               as errors, and the fix involved stripping them, but modern Gits do more).

           •   error outputs warnings for a few such errors, and refuses to apply the patch.

           •   error-all is similar to error but shows all errors.

       --inaccurate-eof
           Under certain circumstances, some versions of diff do not correctly detect a missing
           new-line at the end of the file. As a result, patches created by such diff programs do
           not record incomplete lines correctly. This option adds support for applying such patches
           by working around this bug.

       -v, --verbose
           Report progress to stderr. By default, only a message about the current patch being
           applied will be printed. This option will cause additional information to be reported.

       --recount
           Do not trust the line counts in the hunk headers, but infer them by inspecting the patch
           (e.g. after editing the patch without adjusting the hunk headers appropriately).

       --directory=<root>
           Prepend <root> to all filenames. If a "-p" argument was also passed, it is applied before
           prepending the new root.

           For example, a patch that talks about updating a/git-gui.sh to b/git-gui.sh can be
           applied to the file in the working tree modules/git-gui/git-gui.sh by running git apply
           --directory=modules/git-gui.

       --unsafe-paths
           By default, a patch that affects outside the working area (either a Git controlled
           working tree, or the current working directory when "git apply" is used as a replacement
           of GNU patch) is rejected as a mistake (or a mischief).

           When git apply is used as a "better GNU patch", the user can pass the --unsafe-paths
           option to override this safety check. This option has no effect when --index or --cached
           is in use.

CONFIGURATION
       apply.ignoreWhitespace
           Set to change if you want changes in whitespace to be ignored by default. Set to one of:
           no, none, never, false if you want changes in whitespace to be significant.

       apply.whitespace
           When no --whitespace flag is given from the command line, this configuration item is used
           as the default.

SUBMODULES
       If the patch contains any changes to submodules then git apply treats these changes as
       follows.

       If --index is specified (explicitly or implicitly), then the submodule commits must match the
       index exactly for the patch to apply. If any of the submodules are checked-out, then these
       check-outs are completely ignored, i.e., they are not required to be up to date or clean and
       they are not updated.

       If --index is not specified, then the submodule commits in the patch are ignored and only the
       absence or presence of the corresponding subdirectory is checked and (if possible) updated.

SEE ALSO
       git-am(1).

GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite



Git 2.34.1                                   02/26/2026                                 GIT-APPLY(1)
git-apply(1)
NAME SYNOPSIS DESCRIPTION OPTIONS
--stat --numstat --summary --check --index --cached --intent-to-add -R, --reverse --reject -z --unidiff-zero --apply --no-add --allow-binary-replacement, --binary --ignore-space-change, --ignore-whitespace --inaccurate-eof -v, --verbose --recount --unsafe-paths
CONFIGURATION SUBMODULES SEE ALSO GIT

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