Re: [Quilt-dev] Quilt support for binary files

[Mitch Davis]

On 1/24/07, Mitch Davis <address@hidden> wrote:
> On 1/24/07, Andreas Gruenbacher <address@hidden> wrote:
> >
> > thanks for posting this. One very stupid idea that probably won't go anywhere:
> > couldn't we build support for binary diffs into GNU diff and patch?
>
> It seems the logical place to put it, however I'd be surprised if it
> ever happens:
>
> I found a bug in patch -D in about 1998, it was reported at least once to GNU
> in 2002, and it's still unfixed in the latest GNU patch 2.5.4.
>
>   http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=140247

Also reported to them in 2005:

 http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnu.utils.bugs/month=20050601

And discussed here:

 http://www.opengroup.org/austin/mailarchives/ag-review/msg01203.html

Those wacky diff/patch hackers are the most radical lot since egcs! :-)