git-merge.html

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 306 </style>
 307 <title>git-merge(1)</title>
 308 </head>
 309 <body>
 310 <div id="header">
 311 <h1>
 312 git-merge(1) Manual Page
 313 </h1>
 314 <h2>NAME</h2>
 315 <div class="sectionbody">
 316 <p>git-merge -
 317    Join two or more development histories together
 318 </p>
 319 </div>
 320 </div>
 321 <h2>SYNOPSIS</h2>
 322 <div class="sectionbody">
 323 <div class="verseblock">
 324 <div class="content"><em>git merge</em> [-n] [--stat] [--no-commit] [--squash] [-s &lt;strategy&gt;]&#8230;
 325         [-m &lt;msg&gt;] &lt;remote&gt;&#8230;
 326 <em>git merge</em> &lt;msg&gt; HEAD &lt;remote&gt;&#8230;</div></div>
 327 </div>
 328 <h2 id="_description">DESCRIPTION</h2>
 329 <div class="sectionbody">
 330 <div class="para"><p>This is the top-level interface to the merge machinery
 331 which drives multiple merge strategy scripts.</p></div>
 332 <div class="para"><p>The second syntax (&lt;msg&gt; <tt>HEAD</tt> &lt;remote&gt;) is supported for
 333 historical reasons.  Do not use it from the command line or in
 334 new scripts.  It is the same as <tt>git merge -m &lt;msg&gt; &lt;remote&gt;</tt>.</p></div>
 335 </div>
 336 <h2 id="_options">OPTIONS</h2>
 337 <div class="sectionbody">
 338 <div class="vlist"><dl>
 339 <dt>
 340 -q
 341 </dt>
 342 <dt>
 343 --quiet
 344 </dt>
 345 <dd>
 346 <p>
 347         Operate quietly.
 348 </p>
 349 </dd>
 350 <dt>
 351 -v
 352 </dt>
 353 <dt>
 354 --verbose
 355 </dt>
 356 <dd>
 357 <p>
 358         Be verbose.
 359 </p>
 360 </dd>
 361 <dt>
 362 --stat
 363 </dt>
 364 <dd>
 365 <p>
 366         Show a diffstat at the end of the merge. The diffstat is also
 367         controlled by the configuration option merge.stat.
 368 </p>
 369 </dd>
 370 <dt>
 371 -n
 372 </dt>
 373 <dt>
 374 --no-stat
 375 </dt>
 376 <dd>
 377 <p>
 378         Do not show a diffstat at the end of the merge.
 379 </p>
 380 </dd>
 381 <dt>
 382 --summary
 383 </dt>
 384 <dt>
 385 --no-summary
 386 </dt>
 387 <dd>
 388 <p>
 389         Synonyms to --stat and --no-stat; these are deprecated and will be
 390         removed in the future.
 391 </p>
 392 </dd>
 393 <dt>
 394 --log
 395 </dt>
 396 <dd>
 397 <p>
 398         In addition to branch names, populate the log message with
 399         one-line descriptions from the actual commits that are being
 400         merged.
 401 </p>
 402 </dd>
 403 <dt>
 404 --no-log
 405 </dt>
 406 <dd>
 407 <p>
 408         Do not list one-line descriptions from the actual commits being
 409         merged.
 410 </p>
 411 </dd>
 412 <dt>
 413 --no-commit
 414 </dt>
 415 <dd>
 416 <p>
 417         Perform the merge but pretend the merge failed and do
 418         not autocommit, to give the user a chance to inspect and
 419         further tweak the merge result before committing.
 420 </p>
 421 </dd>
 422 <dt>
 423 --commit
 424 </dt>
 425 <dd>
 426 <p>
 427         Perform the merge and commit the result. This option can
 428         be used to override --no-commit.
 429 </p>
 430 </dd>
 431 <dt>
 432 --squash
 433 </dt>
 434 <dd>
 435 <p>
 436         Produce the working tree and index state as if a real
 437         merge happened (except for the merge information),
 438         but do not actually make a commit or
 439         move the <tt>HEAD</tt>, nor record <tt>$GIT_DIR/MERGE_HEAD</tt> to
 440         cause the next <tt>git commit</tt> command to create a merge
 441         commit.  This allows you to create a single commit on
 442         top of the current branch whose effect is the same as
 443         merging another branch (or more in case of an octopus).
 444 </p>
 445 </dd>
 446 <dt>
 447 --no-squash
 448 </dt>
 449 <dd>
 450 <p>
 451         Perform the merge and commit the result. This option can
 452         be used to override --squash.
 453 </p>
 454 </dd>
 455 <dt>
 456 --no-ff
 457 </dt>
 458 <dd>
 459 <p>
 460         Generate a merge commit even if the merge resolved as a
 461         fast-forward.
 462 </p>
 463 </dd>
 464 <dt>
 465 --ff
 466 </dt>
 467 <dd>
 468 <p>
 469         Do not generate a merge commit if the merge resolved as
 470         a fast-forward, only update the branch pointer. This is
 471         the default behavior of git-merge.
 472 </p>
 473 </dd>
 474 <dt>
 475 -s &lt;strategy&gt;
 476 </dt>
 477 <dt>
 478 --strategy=&lt;strategy&gt;
 479 </dt>
 480 <dd>
 481 <p>
 482         Use the given merge strategy; can be supplied more than
 483         once to specify them in the order they should be tried.
 484         If there is no <tt>-s</tt> option, a built-in list of strategies
 485         is used instead (<em>git-merge-recursive</em> when merging a single
 486         head, <em>git-merge-octopus</em> otherwise).
 487 </p>
 488 </dd>
 489 <dt>
 490 -m &lt;msg&gt;
 491 </dt>
 492 <dd>
 493 <p>
 494         Set the commit message to be used for the merge commit (in
 495         case one is created). The <em>git fmt-merge-msg</em> command can be
 496         used to give a good default for automated <em>git merge</em>
 497         invocations.
 498 </p>
 499 </dd>
 500 <dt>
 501 &lt;remote&gt;&#8230;
 502 </dt>
 503 <dd>
 504 <p>
 505         Other branch heads to merge into our branch.  You need at
 506         least one &lt;remote&gt;.  Specifying more than one &lt;remote&gt;
 507         obviously means you are trying an Octopus.
 508 </p>
 509 </dd>
 510 </dl></div>
 511 </div>
 512 <h2 id="_merge_strategies">MERGE STRATEGIES</h2>
 513 <div class="sectionbody">
 514 <div class="vlist"><dl>
 515 <dt>
 516 resolve
 517 </dt>
 518 <dd>
 519 <p>
 520         This can only resolve two heads (i.e. the current branch
 521         and another branch you pulled from) using a 3-way merge
 522         algorithm.  It tries to carefully detect criss-cross
 523         merge ambiguities and is considered generally safe and
 524         fast.
 525 </p>
 526 </dd>
 527 <dt>
 528 recursive
 529 </dt>
 530 <dd>
 531 <p>
 532         This can only resolve two heads using a 3-way merge
 533         algorithm.  When there is more than one common
 534         ancestor that can be used for 3-way merge, it creates a
 535         merged tree of the common ancestors and uses that as
 536         the reference tree for the 3-way merge.  This has been
 537         reported to result in fewer merge conflicts without
 538         causing mis-merges by tests done on actual merge commits
 539         taken from Linux 2.6 kernel development history.
 540         Additionally this can detect and handle merges involving
 541         renames.  This is the default merge strategy when
 542         pulling or merging one branch.
 543 </p>
 544 </dd>
 545 <dt>
 546 octopus
 547 </dt>
 548 <dd>
 549 <p>
 550         This resolves cases with more than two heads, but refuses to do
 551         a complex merge that needs manual resolution.  It is
 552         primarily meant to be used for bundling topic branch
 553         heads together.  This is the default merge strategy when
 554         pulling or merging more than one branch.
 555 </p>
 556 </dd>
 557 <dt>
 558 ours
 559 </dt>
 560 <dd>
 561 <p>
 562         This resolves any number of heads, but the result of the
 563         merge is always the current branch head.  It is meant to
 564         be used to supersede old development history of side
 565         branches.
 566 </p>
 567 </dd>
 568 <dt>
 569 subtree
 570 </dt>
 571 <dd>
 572 <p>
 573         This is a modified recursive strategy. When merging trees A and
 574         B, if B corresponds to a subtree of A, B is first adjusted to
 575         match the tree structure of A, instead of reading the trees at
 576         the same level. This adjustment is also done to the common
 577         ancestor tree.
 578 </p>
 579 </dd>
 580 </dl></div>
 581 <div class="para"><p>If you tried a merge which resulted in complex conflicts and
 582 want to start over, you can recover with <em>git-reset</em>.</p></div>
 583 </div>
 584 <h2 id="_configuration">CONFIGURATION</h2>
 585 <div class="sectionbody">
 586 <div class="vlist"><dl>
 587 <dt>
 588 merge.conflictstyle
 589 </dt>
 590 <dd>
 591 <p>
 592         Specify the style in which conflicted hunks are written out to
 593         working tree files upon merge.  The default is "merge", which
 594         shows a <tt>&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;</tt> conflict marker, changes made by one side,
 595         a <tt>=======</tt> marker, changes made by the other side, and then
 596         a <tt>&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;</tt> marker.  An alternate style, "diff3", adds a <tt>|||||||</tt>
 597         marker and the original text before the <tt>=======</tt> marker.
 598 </p>
 599 </dd>
 600 <dt>
 601 merge.log
 602 </dt>
 603 <dd>
 604 <p>
 605         Whether to include summaries of merged commits in newly created
 606         merge commit messages. False by default.
 607 </p>
 608 </dd>
 609 <dt>
 610 merge.renameLimit
 611 </dt>
 612 <dd>
 613 <p>
 614         The number of files to consider when performing rename detection
 615         during a merge; if not specified, defaults to the value of
 616         diff.renameLimit.
 617 </p>
 618 </dd>
 619 <dt>
 620 merge.stat
 621 </dt>
 622 <dd>
 623 <p>
 624         Whether to print the diffstat between ORIG_HEAD and the merge result
 625         at the end of the merge.  True by default.
 626 </p>
 627 </dd>
 628 <dt>
 629 merge.tool
 630 </dt>
 631 <dd>
 632 <p>
 633         Controls which merge resolution program is used by
 634         <a href="git-mergetool.html">git-mergetool(1)</a>.  Valid built-in values are: "kdiff3",
 635         "tkdiff", "meld", "xxdiff", "emerge", "vimdiff", "gvimdiff",
 636         "diffuse", "ecmerge", "tortoisemerge", "araxis", and
 637         "opendiff".  Any other value is treated is custom merge tool
 638         and there must be a corresponding mergetool.&lt;tool&gt;.cmd option.
 639 </p>
 640 </dd>
 641 <dt>
 642 merge.verbosity
 643 </dt>
 644 <dd>
 645 <p>
 646         Controls the amount of output shown by the recursive merge
 647         strategy.  Level 0 outputs nothing except a final error
 648         message if conflicts were detected. Level 1 outputs only
 649         conflicts, 2 outputs conflicts and file changes.  Level 5 and
 650         above outputs debugging information.  The default is level 2.
 651         Can be overridden by the <em>GIT_MERGE_VERBOSITY</em> environment variable.
 652 </p>
 653 </dd>
 654 <dt>
 655 merge.&lt;driver&gt;.name
 656 </dt>
 657 <dd>
 658 <p>
 659         Defines a human-readable name for a custom low-level
 660         merge driver.  See <a href="gitattributes.html">gitattributes(5)</a> for details.
 661 </p>
 662 </dd>
 663 <dt>
 664 merge.&lt;driver&gt;.driver
 665 </dt>
 666 <dd>
 667 <p>
 668         Defines the command that implements a custom low-level
 669         merge driver.  See <a href="gitattributes.html">gitattributes(5)</a> for details.
 670 </p>
 671 </dd>
 672 <dt>
 673 merge.&lt;driver&gt;.recursive
 674 </dt>
 675 <dd>
 676 <p>
 677         Names a low-level merge driver to be used when
 678         performing an internal merge between common ancestors.
 679         See <a href="gitattributes.html">gitattributes(5)</a> for details.
 680 </p>
 681 </dd>
 682 <dt>
 683 branch.&lt;name&gt;.mergeoptions
 684 </dt>
 685 <dd>
 686 <p>
 687         Sets default options for merging into branch &lt;name&gt;. The syntax and
 688         supported options are the same as those of <em>git merge</em>, but option
 689         values containing whitespace characters are currently not supported.
 690 </p>
 691 </dd>
 692 </dl></div>
 693 </div>
 694 <h2 id="_how_merge_works">HOW MERGE WORKS</h2>
 695 <div class="sectionbody">
 696 <div class="para"><p>A merge is always between the current <tt>HEAD</tt> and one or more
 697 commits (usually, branch head or tag), and the index file must
 698 match the tree of <tt>HEAD</tt> commit (i.e. the contents of the last commit)
 699 when it starts out.  In other words, <tt>git diff --cached HEAD</tt> must
 700 report no changes.  (One exception is when the changed index
 701 entries are already in the same state that would result from
 702 the merge anyway.)</p></div>
 703 <div class="para"><p>Three kinds of merge can happen:</p></div>
 704 <div class="ilist"><ul>
 705 <li>
 706 <p>
 707 The merged commit is already contained in <tt>HEAD</tt>. This is the
 708   simplest case, called "Already up-to-date."
 709 </p>
 710 </li>
 711 <li>
 712 <p>
 713 <tt>HEAD</tt> is already contained in the merged commit. This is the
 714   most common case especially when invoked from <em>git pull</em>:
 715   you are tracking an upstream repository, have committed no local
 716   changes and now you want to update to a newer upstream revision.
 717   Your <tt>HEAD</tt> (and the index) is updated to point at the merged
 718   commit, without creating an extra merge commit.  This is
 719   called "Fast-forward".
 720 </p>
 721 </li>
 722 <li>
 723 <p>
 724 Both the merged commit and <tt>HEAD</tt> are independent and must be
 725   tied together by a merge commit that has both of them as its parents.
 726   The rest of this section describes this "True merge" case.
 727 </p>
 728 </li>
 729 </ul></div>
 730 <div class="para"><p>The chosen merge strategy merges the two commits into a single
 731 new source tree.
 732 When things merge cleanly, this is what happens:</p></div>
 733 <div class="olist"><ol>
 734 <li>
 735 <p>
 736 The results are updated both in the index file and in your
 737    working tree;
 738 </p>
 739 </li>
 740 <li>
 741 <p>
 742 Index file is written out as a tree;
 743 </p>
 744 </li>
 745 <li>
 746 <p>
 747 The tree gets committed; and
 748 </p>
 749 </li>
 750 <li>
 751 <p>
 752 The <tt>HEAD</tt> pointer gets advanced.
 753 </p>
 754 </li>
 755 </ol></div>
 756 <div class="para"><p>Because of 2., we require that the original state of the index
 757 file matches exactly the current <tt>HEAD</tt> commit; otherwise we
 758 will write out your local changes already registered in your
 759 index file along with the merge result, which is not good.
 760 Because 1. involves only those paths differing between your
 761 branch and the remote branch you are pulling from during the
 762 merge (which is typically a fraction of the whole tree), you can
 763 have local modifications in your working tree as long as they do
 764 not overlap with what the merge updates.</p></div>
 765 <div class="para"><p>When there are conflicts, the following happens:</p></div>
 766 <div class="olist"><ol>
 767 <li>
 768 <p>
 769 <tt>HEAD</tt> stays the same.
 770 </p>
 771 </li>
 772 <li>
 773 <p>
 774 Cleanly merged paths are updated both in the index file and
 775    in your working tree.
 776 </p>
 777 </li>
 778 <li>
 779 <p>
 780 For conflicting paths, the index file records up to three
 781    versions; stage1 stores the version from the common ancestor,
 782    stage2 from <tt>HEAD</tt>, and stage3 from the remote branch (you
 783    can inspect the stages with <tt>git ls-files -u</tt>).  The working
 784    tree files contain the result of the "merge" program; i.e. 3-way
 785    merge results with familiar conflict markers <tt>&lt;&lt;&lt; === &gt;&gt;&gt;</tt>.
 786 </p>
 787 </li>
 788 <li>
 789 <p>
 790 No other changes are done.  In particular, the local
 791    modifications you had before you started merge will stay the
 792    same and the index entries for them stay as they were,
 793    i.e. matching <tt>HEAD</tt>.
 794 </p>
 795 </li>
 796 </ol></div>
 797 </div>
 798 <h2 id="_how_conflicts_are_presented">HOW CONFLICTS ARE PRESENTED</h2>
 799 <div class="sectionbody">
 800 <div class="para"><p>During a merge, the working tree files are updated to reflect the result
 801 of the merge.  Among the changes made to the common ancestor's version,
 802 non-overlapping ones (that is, you changed an area of the file while the
 803 other side left that area intact, or vice versa) are incorporated in the
 804 final result verbatim.  When both sides made changes to the same area,
 805 however, git cannot randomly pick one side over the other, and asks you to
 806 resolve it by leaving what both sides did to that area.</p></div>
 807 <div class="para"><p>By default, git uses the same style as that is used by "merge" program
 808 from the RCS suite to present such a conflicted hunk, like this:</p></div>
 809 <div class="listingblock">
 810 <div class="content">
 811 <pre><tt>Here are lines that are either unchanged from the common
 812 ancestor, or cleanly resolved because only one side changed.
 813 &lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt; yours:sample.txt
 814 Conflict resolution is hard;
 815 let's go shopping.
 816 =======
 817 Git makes conflict resolution easy.
 818 &gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt; theirs:sample.txt
 819 And here is another line that is cleanly resolved or unmodified.</tt></pre>
 820 </div></div>
 821 <div class="para"><p>The area where a pair of conflicting changes happened is marked with markers
 822 <tt>&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;</tt>, <tt>=======</tt>, and <tt>&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;</tt>.  The part before the <tt>=======</tt>
 823 is typically your side, and the part afterwards is typically their side.</p></div>
 824 <div class="para"><p>The default format does not show what the original said in the conflicting
 825 area.  You cannot tell how many lines are deleted and replaced with
 826 Barbie's remark on your side.  The only thing you can tell is that your
 827 side wants to say it is hard and you'd prefer to go shopping, while the
 828 other side wants to claim it is easy.</p></div>
 829 <div class="para"><p>An alternative style can be used by setting the "merge.conflictstyle"
 830 configuration variable to "diff3".  In "diff3" style, the above conflict
 831 may look like this:</p></div>
 832 <div class="listingblock">
 833 <div class="content">
 834 <pre><tt>Here are lines that are either unchanged from the common
 835 ancestor, or cleanly resolved because only one side changed.
 836 &lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt; yours:sample.txt
 837 Conflict resolution is hard;
 838 let's go shopping.
 839 |||||||
 840 Conflict resolution is hard.
 841 =======
 842 Git makes conflict resolution easy.
 843 &gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt; theirs:sample.txt
 844 And here is another line that is cleanly resolved or unmodified.</tt></pre>
 845 </div></div>
 846 <div class="para"><p>In addition to the <tt>&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;</tt>, <tt>=======</tt>, and <tt>&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;</tt> markers, it uses
 847 another <tt>|||||||</tt> marker that is followed by the original text.  You can
 848 tell that the original just stated a fact, and your side simply gave in to
 849 that statement and gave up, while the other side tried to have a more
 850 positive attitude.  You can sometimes come up with a better resolution by
 851 viewing the original.</p></div>
 852 </div>
 853 <h2 id="_how_to_resolve_conflicts">HOW TO RESOLVE CONFLICTS</h2>
 854 <div class="sectionbody">
 855 <div class="para"><p>After seeing a conflict, you can do two things:</p></div>
 856 <div class="ilist"><ul>
 857 <li>
 858 <p>
 859 Decide not to merge.  The only clean-ups you need are to reset
 860    the index file to the <tt>HEAD</tt> commit to reverse 2. and to clean
 861    up working tree changes made by 2. and 3.; <em>git-reset --hard</em> can
 862    be used for this.
 863 </p>
 864 </li>
 865 <li>
 866 <p>
 867 Resolve the conflicts.  Git will mark the conflicts in
 868    the working tree.  Edit the files into shape and
 869    <em>git-add</em> them to the index.  Use <em>git-commit</em> to seal the deal.
 870 </p>
 871 </li>
 872 </ul></div>
 873 <div class="para"><p>You can work through the conflict with a number of tools:</p></div>
 874 <div class="ilist"><ul>
 875 <li>
 876 <p>
 877 Use a mergetool.  <em>git mergetool</em> to launch a graphical
 878    mergetool which will work you through the merge.
 879 </p>
 880 </li>
 881 <li>
 882 <p>
 883 Look at the diffs.  <em>git diff</em> will show a three-way diff,
 884    highlighting changes from both the HEAD and remote versions.
 885 </p>
 886 </li>
 887 <li>
 888 <p>
 889 Look at the diffs on their own. <em>git log --merge -p &lt;path&gt;</em>
 890    will show diffs first for the HEAD version and then the
 891    remote version.
 892 </p>
 893 </li>
 894 <li>
 895 <p>
 896 Look at the originals.  <em>git show :1:filename</em> shows the
 897    common ancestor, <em>git show :2:filename</em> shows the HEAD
 898    version and <em>git show :3:filename</em> shows the remote version.
 899 </p>
 900 </li>
 901 </ul></div>
 902 </div>
 903 <h2 id="_see_also">SEE ALSO</h2>
 904 <div class="sectionbody">
 905 <div class="para"><p><a href="git-fmt-merge-msg.html">git-fmt-merge-msg(1)</a>, <a href="git-pull.html">git-pull(1)</a>,
 906 <a href="gitattributes.html">gitattributes(5)</a>,
 907 <a href="git-reset.html">git-reset(1)</a>,
 908 <a href="git-diff.html">git-diff(1)</a>, <a href="git-ls-files.html">git-ls-files(1)</a>,
 909 <a href="git-add.html">git-add(1)</a>, <a href="git-rm.html">git-rm(1)</a>,
 910 <a href="git-mergetool.html">git-mergetool(1)</a></p></div>
 911 </div>
 912 <h2 id="_author">Author</h2>
 913 <div class="sectionbody">
 914 <div class="para"><p>Written by Junio C Hamano &lt;gitster@pobox.com&gt;</p></div>
 915 </div>
 916 <h2 id="_documentation">Documentation</h2>
 917 <div class="sectionbody">
 918 <div class="para"><p>Documentation by Junio C Hamano and the git-list &lt;git@vger.kernel.org&gt;.</p></div>
 919 </div>
 920 <h2 id="_git">GIT</h2>
 921 <div class="sectionbody">
 922 <div class="para"><p>Part of the <a href="git.html">git(1)</a> suite</p></div>
 923 </div>
 924 <div id="footer">
 925 <div id="footer-text">
 926 Last updated 2009-10-10 00:56:05 UTC
 927 </div>
 928 </div>
 929 </body>
 930 </html>