Porting patch(1) from NetBSD to FreeBSD (was Re: FreeBSD in Google Code-In 2012? You can help too!)

[Pedro Giffuni]

Hello Hiren;


On 10/27/2012 16:48, hiren panchasara wrote:
> + Sean, who has been helping me.
>
> On Sat, Oct 27, 2012 at 2:31 PM, Chris Rees <crees at freebsd.org 
> <mailto:crees at freebsd.org>> wrote:
>
>     On 27 October 2012 22:17, hiren panchasara
>     <hiren.panchasara at gmail.com <mailto:hiren.panchasara at gmail.com>>
>     wrote:
>     > [removing the CC list]
>     >
>     > On Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 3:36 PM, Pedro Giffuni <pfg at freebsd.org
>     <mailto:pfg at freebsd.org>> wrote:
>     >
>     >> (cc'ing -ports and cutting most of the rest)
>     >>
>     >> > From: Eitan Adler
>     >> .>
>     >> >On 24 October 2012 13:24, Fernando Apesteguía wrote:
>     >> >> Also related to that, what about writing a section about
>     redports[1]
>     >> >> in the porter's handbook[2]?
>     >> >
>     >> >This is a good documentation task... but we need more *coding*
>     tasks as
>     >> well.
>     >> >
>     >>
>     >> We do need to port and test patch (1) from NetBSD or DragonFly
>     to replace
>     >> GNU patch, and this shouldn't be difficult.
>     >>
>     >
>     > Hi Pedro / List,
>     >
>     > I am not part of google summer of code but I've tried to port
>     patch(1) from
>     > NetBSD into FreeBSD head. I hope that is okay.
>     >
>     > Patching was trivial and It _seems_ to be working fine.
>     >
>     > I would appreciate any ideas around how to test the changes and
>     how to
>     > proceed further.
>
>     Have you a patch :)?  You're right, there shouldn't have been many
>     changes needed.
>
>
> Will prepare a patch and post here as soon as I get a chance :-)
>

This is great news Hiren, Thanks!


The stress test for this utility is the ports tree but before that we 
have to
know what will change.

What needs to be done is:

1- Compare the options between our old patch and the new BSD patch.
2- Document this in FreeBSD's wiki.
3- Prepare a port for testing.

Unfortunately I will be very busy for more than a month and I can't
help much but I am sure some other committer will love to follow
on this.

Thanks for taking the initiative, that's what FreeBSD needs!

Pedro.