Bug Report for git apply

[Can Gemicioglu <cgemici@ccs.neu.edu>]

Hi,

I noticed a problem when trying to apply a patch file that contained many separate patches in a single file. Trying to apply this patch gave me a "No such file or directory" error for one of the files in the middle and after looking around I realised this file was also created earlier in the patch. I tested this myself with these steps and saw a similar error:

1. Create a new file and commit.
2. Move the file to a different folder and commit.
3. Create a single patch for these 2 commits by using git format-patch and concatenating the two resulting files (01.patch, 02.patch) into one (combined.patch).
4. Roll back to 2 commits earlier.

At that point if I try to use 'git apply combined.patch', it will throw the same no such file error. However, if I use 'git am combined.patch' instead it works. If I apply the first 2 patches separately instead, using 'git apply 0*' it also works but if I first try to check if it will work with 'git apply --check 0*' it actually throws the same error again.

I'm guessing there's something like a check to make sure the file exists that throws an error even if the file was going to be created by previous commits.

Tested on git version 2.21.0 on Ubuntu 18.04

Best,
Can Gemicioglu