Applying a patch doesn't work I'm having trouble with applying a patch for a Drupal module.
I thought it was as simple as using "git apply thepatch.patch," but when I do this in the main directory that holds the .git directory, I get the following error message: 


  Checking patch entity_translation.admin.inc…
  error: entity_translation.admin.inc: No such file or directory


When I do this in the directory where the files are located, nothing happens; no error is shown, but no file is changed.

It's not a problem I have with this particular patch, but I never seem to be able to apply a patch, and I just end up manually editing the files.  

I would like to know the solution once and for all.
It is possible that the patch was rolled before the days of Git on drupal.org.

For old patches:

patch -p0 &lt; thepatch.patch


For new patches that mysteriously fail with git apply:

patch -p1 &lt; thepatch.patch