[RFC] patch's default backup behavior
Date: Sat, 09 Apr 2022 03:25:08 UTC
Hello! FreeBSD's patch follows historical patch(1) behavior w.r.t. backups, where a backup is created for every file patched. I'd like to test the waters on switching this to the GNU behavior, which feels a whole lot more reasonable. Notably, they'll only create backup files if a mismatch was detected (presumably this means either a hunk needed fuzz or a hunk outright failed). This yields far fewer backup files in the ideal scenario (context entirely matches), while still leaving backup files when it's sensible (base file changed and we might want to regenerate the patch). Thoughts / comments / concerns? Cross-posted this to a couple of different lists to try and hit the largest number of stakeholders in patch(1) behavior. Thanks, Kyle Evans