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] [--ours | --theirs | --union]
[--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 | --quiet] [--unsafe-paths] [--allow-empty] [<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.
--ours, --theirs, --union
Instead of leaving conflicts in the file, resolve conflicts
favouring our (or their or both) side of the lines. Requires --3way.
--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, the 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 application 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.
-q, --quiet
Suppress stderr output. Messages about patch status and progress
will not be printed.
--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.
--allow-empty
Don’t return an error for patches containing no diff. This includes
empty patches and patches with commit text only.
CONFIGURATION
Everything below this line in this section is selectively included from
the git-config(1) documentation. The content is the same as what’s found
there:
apply.ignoreWhitespace
When set to change, tells git apply to ignore changes in whitespace,
in the same way as the --ignore-space-change option. When set to one
of: no, none, never, false, it tells git apply to respect all
whitespace differences. See git-apply(1).
apply.whitespace
Tells git apply how to handle whitespace, in the same way as the
--whitespace option. See git-apply(1).
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 2.47.3 07/30/2025 GIT-APPLY(1)
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