Git has two commands to apply patches: git am and git apply, but none of them are able to apply patches from an url. So here are my aliases to do so.

git apply-url - Apply a patch to files and/or to the index from url

$git config --global alias.apply-url "!f() { curl -s $1 2>nul | git apply ${@:2}; }; f"

The alias itself is pretty simple. First it declares callable function f and then calls it. The function itself calls curl in silent mode with first argument passed to alias as url. Then it pipes curls output to git apply with remaing arguments. This alias applies the patch but does not create a commit.

Usage

$git apply-url http://example.org/sample.patch args

The first argument MUST be an url for a patch, other arguments will be passed to git apply.

git apply-url - Apply a series of patches from an url (git am-url):

$git config --global alias.am-url "!f() { curl -s $1 2>nul | git am ${@:2}; }; f"

This alias works exactly the same as previous.

Usage

$git am-url http://example.org/sample.patch args

The first argument MUST be an url for a patch, other arguments will be passed to git am. You can apply a pull request from github by performing following:

$git am-url https://github.com/user/repo/pull/777.patch

Happy aliasing!