diff-patch-tool

diff-patch-tool is a command-line tool that reads a diff from your clipboard and applies it to your local file system. This is particularly useful for quickly applying patches provided by AI assistants like GPT-4 or Claude, which often provide code changes in a diff format.

The tool's binary is named diff-patcher.

Installation

npm install -g diff-patch-tool

Usage

1. Copy a diff: Copy a diff in the standard unified format to your clipboard. It can be a "dirty" diff, surrounded by other text or markdown fences (```diff) - the parser will find the diff content automatically.

   Example:

   --- a/src/index.js
   +++ b/src/index.js
   @@ -1,3 +1,3 @@
    function hello() {
   -  console.log("Hello, old world!");
   +  console.log("Hello, new world!");
    }

2. Navigate to your project: cd into the root directory of the project you want to patch.

3. Run the tool:

   diff-patcher

   The tool will read from the clipboard, parse the diff, and apply the changes to the files relative to your current directory.

4. (Optional) Specify a target directory: If you want to apply the patch to a different directory without cd-ing into it, you can provide a path as an argument:

   diff-patcher ./path/to/your/project