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 an arbitrary source
    snapshot of perl with selected numbered patches to produce another
    snapshot of perl. It is designed to be called from other utilities (such
    as apc-buildaperl) that implement a source repository in the broader
    sense.

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

    When you have unpacked a perl source tarball or otherwise produced a
    source snapshot, 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 plus one.

    So the above command is equivalent to something like

      perl patchaperlup --perldir perl5.5.660 --diffdir diffs \
           --start 5199 --upto 12345

    depending on the contents of your diffdir. (perl5.5.660 had finished
    with patch 5198.)

    The batch job is pretty verbose and explains what it is doing. The
    reason for the verbosity is 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 STDOUT, 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

    everything else is printed to STDERR.

    The --version switch prints the version and exits.

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>

