Which command would you use to apply the changes in a diff file to your existing kernel source?

The correct answer is B. patch. patch is the correct answer because it is specifically designed to apply diff files to source code - it reads the unified or context diff format produced by the diff command and applies those changes to the target files in place. The distractors are wrong for these reasons…

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Question

Which command would you use to apply the changes in a diff file to your existing kernel source?

Options

Aup2date
Bpatch
Crpm
Ddpkg
Ediff

How the community answered

(28 responses)

A
4% (1)
B
82% (23)
C
4% (1)
E
11% (3)

Explanation

patch is the correct answer because it is specifically designed to apply diff files to source code - it reads the unified or context diff format produced by the diff command and applies those changes to the target files in place.

The distractors are wrong for these reasons: up2date (A) is a Red Hat package update tool for fetching RPM updates from a repository; rpm (C) is the Red Hat Package Manager for installing/removing .rpm packages; dpkg (D) is the Debian package manager for .deb packages; and diff (E) generates the difference between two files but cannot apply changes - it is the source, not the consumer, of diff output.

Memory tip: think of it as a logical pair - diff creates the patch file, patch applies it. The command name literally mirrors the file type: you use patch on a .patch (or .diff) file.

Topics

#patch command#diff files#kernel source#file patching

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