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10.11.2 Inhibiting Keyboard Input

There are two ways you can prevent patch from asking you any questions. The -f or --force option assumes that you know what you are doing. It causes patch to do the following:

• Skip patches that do not contain file names in their headers.
• Patch files even though they have the wrong version for the ‘Prereq:’ line in the patch;
• Assume that patches are not reversed even if they look like they are.

The -t or --batch option is similar to -f, in that it suppresses questions, but it makes somewhat different assumptions:

• Skip patches that do not contain file names in their headers (the same as -f).
• Skip patches for which the file has the wrong version for the ‘Prereq:’ line in the patch;
• Assume that patches are reversed if they look like they are.