1git-merge-index(1) 2================== 3 4NAME 5---- 6git-merge-index - Run a merge for files needing merging 7 8 9SYNOPSIS 10-------- 11'git merge-index' [-o] [-q] <merge-program> (-a | [--] <file>*) 12 13DESCRIPTION 14----------- 15This looks up the <file>(s) in the index and, if there are any merge 16entries, passes the SHA1 hash for those files as arguments 1, 2, 3 (empty 17argument if no file), and <file> as argument 4. File modes for the three 18files are passed as arguments 5, 6 and 7. 19 20OPTIONS 21------- 22\--:: 23 Do not interpret any more arguments as options. 24 25-a:: 26 Run merge against all files in the index that need merging. 27 28-o:: 29 Instead of stopping at the first failed merge, do all of them 30 in one shot - continue with merging even when previous merges 31 returned errors, and only return the error code after all the 32 merges. 33 34-q:: 35 Do not complain about a failed merge program (a merge program 36 failure usually indicates conflicts during the merge). This is for 37 porcelains which might want to emit custom messages. 38 39If 'git merge-index' is called with multiple <file>s (or -a) then it 40processes them in turn only stopping if merge returns a non-zero exit 41code. 42 43Typically this is run with a script calling git's imitation of 44the 'merge' command from the RCS package. 45 46A sample script called 'git merge-one-file' is included in the 47distribution. 48 49ALERT ALERT ALERT! The git "merge object order" is different from the 50RCS 'merge' program merge object order. In the above ordering, the 51original is first. But the argument order to the 3-way merge program 52'merge' is to have the original in the middle. Don't ask me why. 53 54Examples: 55 56 torvalds@ppc970:~/merge-test> git merge-index cat MM 57 This is MM from the original tree. # original 58 This is modified MM in the branch A. # merge1 59 This is modified MM in the branch B. # merge2 60 This is modified MM in the branch B. # current contents 61 62or 63 64 torvalds@ppc970:~/merge-test> git merge-index cat AA MM 65 cat: : No such file or directory 66 This is added AA in the branch A. 67 This is added AA in the branch B. 68 This is added AA in the branch B. 69 fatal: merge program failed 70 71where the latter example shows how 'git merge-index' will stop trying to 72merge once anything has returned an error (i.e., `cat` returned an error 73for the AA file, because it didn't exist in the original, and thus 74'git merge-index' didn't even try to merge the MM thing). 75 76GIT 77--- 78Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite