NAME
    patchaperlup - apply a couple of patches in a perl source directory

SYNOPSIS
      patchaperlup --perldir perldir
                   --diffdir diffdir
                   [ --start patch-number ]
                   [ --upto  patch-number ]
                   [ --quiet ]
                   [ --version ]

DESCRIPTION
    This utility runs a batch of jobs that upgrade a recent development perl
    with selected patches to produce a recent development snapshot of perl.

    The status of this script is alpha as the applicability of the
    assumptions about where the current patches are, how they are named and
    treated, etc. are unstable. The script is only reflecting current
    practice which is subject to change without notice.

    How to get at the patches is described in the perlhack manpage.

    Be careful though, Sarathy posted a recommendation:

      From: Gurusamy Sarathy <gsar@ActiveState.com>
      Subject: Re: rsync'ed patches vs. rsync'ed source 
      Date: Wed, 01 Nov 2000 09:58:08 -0800

      I'd strongly recommend sticking with rsync.

      The rsync mirror is automatic and syncs with the repository every five
      minutes.

      Updating the patch area still requires manual intervention (with all
      the goofiness that implies, which you've noted) and is typically on
      a daily cycle.  Making this process automatic is on my tuit list,
      but don't ask me when.

    I take it that for the real recent perl of the day, you should use rsync
    to the perl-current area, but if you want to track down when a bug was
    introduced or fixed, the patch repository is the natural choice.

    When you have unpacked a recent perl, patchaperlup should be run as

      perl patchaperlup --perldir perl5.5.660 --diffdir diffs

    "patchaperlup" checks which highest numbered patch has already been
    applied to the perl in the "perldir". The --upto argument defaults to
    the highest numbered patch in the directory given by the --diffdir
    argument. The --start argument defaults to the last patch referenced in
    the Changes file in the untarred perl sources.

    The batch job is pretty verbose and explains what it is doing. The
    reason for the verbosity was that it can take a while until
    "patchaperlup" is finishing. Verbosity can be turned off with the
    --quiet switch and increased with the --verbose switch.

    "patchaperlup" prints a few mail-header-like lines to standard output,
    namely

      Version: version of patchaperlup
      Perldir: perl directory
      Diffdir: directory containing the patches
      Firstpatch: number of the first applied patch
      Lastpatch: number of the last applied patch

    The --version switch prints the version and exits.

EXAMPLE
    The following shell script built today's perl and stuffed it into a
    directory of its own. Please fill in your own path to DEVPERL.

      DEVPERL=perl-5.7.0
      tar xzf /path/to/devperl/$DEVPERL.tar.gz
      rsync -avz rsync://ftp.linux.activestate.com/diffs diffs
      patchaperlup --perldir $DEVPERL --diffdir diffs > patchaperlup.out
      LPATCH=`awk '$1=="Lastpatch:"{print $2}' patchaperlup.out`
      mv $DEVPERL $DEVPERL@$LPATCH
      cd $DEVPERL@$LPATCH && ./Configure -des && make test

    If all patches from the APC are merged into a single diffs directory, it
    is possible to run the above example with any DEVPERL from 5.005_58
    upwards. At the time of writing, there were some tiny patch problems if
    you do that. I'm planning to special-case them so that patchaperlup does
    not report unnecessary errors.

PREREQUISITES
    The programs "zcat" and "patch" must be in your path. Likewise "perl"
    must be available in the path to run the utility "patchls" which can be
    found in recent perl distributions.

AUTHOR
    Andreas Koenig <andreas.koenig@anima.de>