It is often a nuisance to download a large archive if only a couple of lines
in a couple of files have changed.  That's what the patch and the diff
commands have been invented for.

How to apply a patch?
=====================

Say you want to update from MiNTLib 0.50.1 to MiNTLib 0.51.  It is assumed
that you have the old sources in /usr/local/src/mintlib-0.50.1, so
cd to:

	bash$ cd /usr/local/src
	
Now get the the patch file "mintlib-0.50.1-0.51.patch.gz" from your
favorite ftp server and copy it to /usr/local/src.  Now run:


	bash$ gunzip mintlib-0.50.1.patch.gz
	bash$ patch -p0 < mintlib-0.50.1.patch.gz

That will update all files saving backups (normally with the extender
".orig" or "~".  If something didn't work you will find the rejected 
patches in "*.rej".  To find them type

	bash$ find mintlib-0.50.1/ -name '*.rej'

If the patch you downloaded is really big it is also a nuisance that
you have to uncompress it before applying the patch.  You can do that
in one go:

	bash$ zcat mintlib-0.50.1.patch.gz | patch -p0

If you don't have the zcat command you can replace it with one of the
following:

	zcat
	gunzip -c
	gzip -d -c
	
One of them should work.

Last but not least: Don't forget to rename your directory from
"mintlib-0.50.1" to "mintlib-0.51".  You can also do that before
applying the patch, that doesn't make any difference.

How to make a version jump?
===========================

Say you have the MiNTLib 0.50.1 and want to upgrade to 0.53.4.  
You have to get all intermediate patches (e. g. 
"mintlib-0.50.1-0.51.patch.gz", "mintlib-0.51-0.51.1.patch.gz",
...) and apply them one by one as described above.  But count
the bytes.  If the size of all patches summed up exceeds the size
of the new archive you had better download the fresh archive 
instead.  Also keep in mind that not an infinite number of patches
will be held on the ftp server.

Hope this helps.

Guido Flohr <gufl0000@stud.uni-sb.de>