diff --git a/gdbpatchno b/gdbpatchno
new file mode 100755
index 0000000..66afe02
--- /dev/null
+++ b/gdbpatchno
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+#! /bin/sh
+# $Id$
+# Print the first unused patch number across all the current package's branches.
+
+echo $[1+$(cat ../*/*.spec|sed -n 's/^[# %]*patch\([0-9]*\).*$/\1/p'|sort -rnu|head -n1)]