Updating Your FAST Application with the Latest Release (via patch file)

When new FAST releases are announced we’ll generally publish a patch file. This file contains all the changes between a previous release and the current one. An example of a patch file can be seen here. Applying this file to your current project is relatively straight-forward, but will become complex the more you venture down your own development path. For the sake of this article we’ll assume that you’ve made no (or only minor) customizations.

Download the patch file and place it somewhere on your computer. From your current Rails app directory run the following command:

patch -p0 -i /path/to/your/patch/file/fast_tracking_9502.diff

You’ll see a bunch of patches applied to your project. You should now be able to run and test your project with the latest enhancements. For more information on patching here’s a great article about creating and applying a patch in Subversion:

http://ariejan.net/2007/07/03/how-to-create-and-apply-a-patch-with-subversion/

After you feel comfortable that everything is working and all your tests pass, then you simply need to commit them to your SVN repo and deploy.