CustomPatch

Patch a buggy NPM package without forking it.

Based on the handy diff package (there is a jsdiff published on the NPM registry, but it is a bogus one)

WHY

This tool does what patch-package does (or more accurately - should be doing) but without the related issues:

• it works faster, especially when creating the patch
• it never chokes on its own patches
• it does not break if you try to apply a patch more than once (but shows a warning)
• it does not require/depend on GIT

When you have made a bugfix for one of your dependencies but the author/maintainers refuse to accept your PR - you do not need to fork the package. Create a patch and seamlessly apply it locally for all your builds.

Installation

npm install @smushytaco/custompatch -g

Setup

It operates in exactly the same way as patch-package so you can use the same setup if you have it already. Add the following to your package.json

"scripts": {
  "prepare": "custompatch"
}

Usage

Making patches

Open your IDE and make the required changes for the bugfix inside your dependency in node_modules. After that run

custompatch "name-of-the-buggy-package"

This will create a folder called patches inside your project and a file called name-of-the-buggy-package#version.patch in this folder. This file will be a unified diff between your fixed version of the dependency and its original code.

You can specify more than 1 package on the command-line - but no command-line options are accepted.

Updating patches

The process is exactly the same as for creating a patch for the first time.

Applying patches

Run custompatch without arguments inside your project folder - it will apply all the patches from patches folder. If you want to target specific patches you can use the --patch (-p) flag like so:

custompatch --patch "name-of-the-buggy-package"

Reversing patches

To reverse all patches you can use the --reverse (-r) flag like so:

custompatch --reverse

To reverse specific patches you can use the --reverse (-r) flag like so:

custompatch --reverse "name-of-the-buggy-package"

Benefits of patching over forking

• Forks often require extra build steps - and even more often you do not need this overhead
• CustomPatch warns you when a patch was not applied cleanly - so that you can check that your fix is still valid for the new version of dependency
• Keep your patches colocated with the code that depends on them
• Patches can be reviewed as part of your normal review process, forks probably can't

License

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2024 Nikan Radan

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.