Node:Changed White Space, Next:Reversed Patches, Up:Imperfect

#### Applying Patches with Changed White Space

Sometimes mailers, editors, or other programs change spaces into tabs, or vice versa. If this happens to a patch file or an input file, the files might look the same, but `patch` will not be able to match them properly. If this problem occurs, use the `-l` or `--ignore-white-space` option, which makes `patch` compare blank characters (i.e. spaces and tabs) loosely so that any nonempty sequence of blanks in the patch file matches any nonempty sequence of blanks in the input files. Non-blank characters must still match exactly. Each line of the context must still match a line in the input file.