Create a git patch from the uncommitted changes in the current working directory

Question

Say I have uncommitted changes in my working directory  How can I make a patch from those without having to create a commit

User · Answer

To create a patch with both modified  amp  new files  staged  you can run   git diff HEAD  gt  file name patch

User · Answer

If you haven t yet commited the changes  then  git diff  gt  mypatch patch  But sometimes it happens that part of the stuff you re doing are new files that are untracked and won t be in your git diff output  So  one way to do a patch is to stage everything for a new commit  git add each file  or just git add    but don t do the commit  and then  git diff --cached  gt  mypatch patch  Add the  binary  option if you want to add binary files to the patch  e g  mp3 files   git diff --cached --binary  gt  mypatch patch  You can later apply the patch  git apply mypatch patch

User · Answer

git diff and git apply will work for text files  but won t work for binary files   You can easily create a full binary patch  but you will have to create a temporary commit   Once you ve made your temporary commit s   you can create the patch with   git format-patch  lt options    gt    After you ve made the patch  run this command   git reset --mixed  lt SHA of commit  before  your working-changes commit s  gt    This will roll back your temporary commit s    The final result leaves your working copy  intentionally  dirty with the same changes you originally had   On the receiving side  you can use the same trick to apply the changes to the working copy  without having the commit history   Simply apply the patch es   and git reset --mixed  lt SHA of commit  before  the patches gt    Note that you might have to be well-synced for this whole option to work   I ve seen some errors when applying patches when the person making them hadn t pulled down as many changes as I had   There are probably ways to get it to work  but I haven t looked far into it     Here s how to create the same patches in Tortoise Git  not that I recommend using that tool     Commit your working changes Right click the branch root directory and click Tortoise Git -  Create Patch Serial  Choose whichever range makes sense  Since  FETCH HEAD will work if you re well-synced  Create the patch es   Right click the branch root directory and click Tortise Git -  Show Log Right click the commit before your temporary commit s   and click reset   lt branch gt   to this    Select the Mixed option   And how to apply them    Right click the branch root directory and click Tortoise Git -  Apply Patch Serial Select the correct patch es  and apply them Right click the branch root directory and click Tortise Git -  Show Log Right click the commit before the patch s commit s   and click reset   lt branch gt   to this    Select the Mixed option

User · Answer

I like    git format-patch HEAD  lt N gt    where  lt N gt  is number of last commits to save as patches   The details how to use the command are in the DOC  UPD Here you can find how to apply them then   UPD For those who did not get the idea of format-patch Add alias   git config --global alias make-patch   bash -c  cd   GIT PREFIX  git add   git commit -m   uncommited    git format-patch HEAD 1  git reset HEAD 1     Then at any directory of your project repository run   git make-patch   This command will create 0001-uncommited patch at your current directory  Patch will contain all the changes and untracked files that are visible to next command   git status

User · Answer

We could also specify the files  to include just the files with relative changes  particularly when they span multiple directories e x   git diff   path1 file1 ext   path2 file2 ext   fileN ext  gt    whatever path whatever name patch   I found this to be not specified in the answers or comments  which are all relevant and correct  so chose to add it  Explicit is better than implicit

User · Answer

git diff for unstaged changes  git diff --cached for staged changes  git diff HEAD for both staged and unstaged changes

User · Answer

If you want to do binary  give a --binary option when you run git diff

[git] Create a git patch from the uncommitted changes in the current working directory

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