Yes — the GNU diff -u output, what git diff and patch produce. Other formats (context diff, ed scripts) aren't supported.

What if the patch doesn't apply cleanly?

Conflicts are reported per-hunk with context. You'll need to resolve manually; the tool doesn't do 3-way merges.

Does it handle binary patches?

No — text-only. For binary diffs use bsdiff, xdelta, or git-binary-patch format tools.

For one-off applications without installing patch. Also useful for demos and teaching — visual before/after makes the diff intuitive.

Apply a unified diff patch to source text. Part of the DevTools Surf developer suite. Browse more tools in the Developer Utilities collection.

The unified diff format was created by Wayne Davison in 1990 and became the default in GNU diff 2.0 — it replaced the older context diff format with a more compact notation.
Larry Wall created the 'patch' utility in 1985 — it became so essential to open-source development that it was one of the first tools installed on any Unix system.
Git internally stores commits as snapshots, not diffs — the diff is computed on-the-fly, which is why git can show diffs between any two commits almost instantly.

Unified diff format?: Yes — the GNU diff -u output, what git diff and patch produce. Other formats (context diff, ed scripts) aren't supported.
What if the patch doesn't apply cleanly?: Conflicts are reported per-hunk with context. You'll need to resolve manually; the tool doesn't do 3-way merges.
Does it handle binary patches?: No — text-only. For binary diffs use bsdiff, xdelta, or git-binary-patch format tools.
Why use this over `patch` CLI?: For one-off applications without installing patch. Also useful for demos and teaching — visual before/after makes the diff intuitive.

Apply a unified diff patch to source text. Part of the DevTools Surf developer suite. Browse more tools in the Developer Utilities collection.

The unified diff format was created by Wayne Davison in 1990 and became the default in GNU diff 2.0 — it replaced the older context diff format with a more compact notation.
Larry Wall created the 'patch' utility in 1985 — it became so essential to open-source development that it was one of the first tools installed on any Unix system.
Git internally stores commits as snapshots, not diffs — the diff is computed on-the-fly, which is why git can show diffs between any two commits almost instantly.

Unified diff format?: Yes — the GNU diff -u output, what git diff and patch produce. Other formats (context diff, ed scripts) aren't supported.
What if the patch doesn't apply cleanly?: Conflicts are reported per-hunk with context. You'll need to resolve manually; the tool doesn't do 3-way merges.
Does it handle binary patches?: No — text-only. For binary diffs use bsdiff, xdelta, or git-binary-patch format tools.
Why use this over `patch` CLI?: For one-off applications without installing patch. Also useful for demos and teaching — visual before/after makes the diff intuitive.