git: Patch does not have a valid e-mail address

Question

I have a patch-file.

I want to apply this patch to my code in git repository.

When I used subversion this process was quite simple: right click -> tortoise svn -> apply patch. It always works as I expected.

But I cannot do this using git. Git doesn't apply my patch. It complains about

Patch does not have a valid e-mail address.

So, my question is: "How apply patch file in this situation?"

Answer 1

Git created patches are meant to be applied with Git tools. Use

git apply <patch>

If the patch is not created with Git, then just use a patch program 'behind the back' of Git. Often this is the program 'patch':

patch <patch>

After applying the patch, add and commit in Git as usual.

Answer 2

This works with mbox files downloaded from pipermail used by many open source projects. This probably doesn't work in the OP's case, but the same symptom/question results when using git am with pipermail extracted messages/patches.

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Make a backup of the file and edit it to add a line,

From: [email protected] (Proper Name)

Often the line already exists, but anti-spam features may have converted the @ sign to the text at. You can patch a bunch of files with a gnu sed command like,

sed -ie 's/\(From:.*\) at /\1@/' *.patch

This just replaces ' at ' with the @ sign. After this, git am should accept it.

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If you have access to the git repository you can use the regular commands,

1. git checkout oldbranch
2. git format-patch HEAD~4 This will make four files that are patches of the last changes (change the number for your case).
3. git checkout master
4. git am *.patch

You get the same commit ids, messages, etc as the remote repository which can be useful later.

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Tools like gitk and kdiff do NOT generate the same data as format-patch and you don't get the commit history. If you have this type of data, you must use git apply or generate patches as above.

See: Difference between git format-patch and git diff.