patches between different repositories

[Matthias Lehmann <mat@matlehmann.de>]

Hi all,

I have to apply patches from one repository to another repository, which 
have a different layout (I am working on splitting one big repository into 
several smaller ones, while development still continues on the big 
repository).

So I did

big-repo$ git format-patche -o /tmp/foo @{some-date} -- subdir
small-repo$ git apply -p2 --directory=some/path --check /tmp/foo/*

and get

fatal: git diff header lacks filename information when removing 2 leading 
pathname components (line 37)

the patch looks like this:

35| diff --git a/xyz/bar.jpg b/xyz/bar.jpg
36| new file mode 100644
37| index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000.. 
3dcce2e1f68586ed2089d86b1bf4e7e41c818d97
38| GIT binary patch
39| literal 8791

It seems, like the -p options to git-apply can't handle new files.

Am I doing something wrong here? Or is there another way to merge changes 
within different repositories with differnt layouts?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Best regards,

Matthias