DH_QUILT_PATCH(1)

💖 DH_QUILT_PATCH 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the manual page for dh_quilt_patch, which lives in the Debhelper family and is here to apply the patches listed in debian/patches/series. yes literally that's the whole job. she's simple, she's reliable, she's iconic. 🎀

---

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

dh_quilt_patch [debhelper options]

---

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so here's the tea, bestie: dh_quilt_patch is honestly so straightforward it's giving main character energy with zero drama. it sets the environment variable QUILT_PATCHES to debian/patches, and then it just calls

quilt push -a

and that's it. every single patch listed in debian/patches/series gets applied in the current directory. slay. 💅

and here's the nice part — if the patches have already been applied, the command does not fail. no cap. she's not gonna yell at you for being prepared. 🫶

lowkey important: if the file debian/patches/series doesn't exist, or it exists but is empty, dh_quilt_patch just returns without doing anything at all. no patches, no problem, no output. it's giving "i'm not mad i'm just not participating." 💀

oh and if you wanna be different (valid), you can use a whole other directory instead of debian/patches by setting — and exporting — the environment variable QUILT_PATCH_DIR. set it, export it, live your truth. ✨

---

🦋 EXAMPLES 🦋

so the usual way people run this is indirectly, from inside a rules file, via the dh command. like so:

%:
    dh $@ --with quilt

but she can also be called directly at the start of the build rule (or the configure rule, whichever vibe you're on):

build:
    dh_quilt_patch
    ./configure
    $(MAKE)

look at her go. 🌈

---

🎀 NOTES 🎀

🚨 real talk: this tool is useless if you're using the source package format 3.0 (quilt). like, completely redundant. not me warning you about doing double work bestie. 😭

if you haven't already made the switch to that source format... consider switching to it. fr fr. it'll change your life. ⭐

---

💜 SEE ALSO 💜

• debhelper(7)
• dh(1)

this program is meant to be used together with debhelper. they're a package deal, iykyk. 👑

---

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Raphael Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org> — wrote her, raised her, absolute legend. 🫶

---

and that's the whole page, bestie!! this manual page was rendered by perl v5.40.1 and dated 2026-01-23 — so yeah, she's fresh, she's current, she's the moment. go patch something cute. 🍓🧚💖