1git-merge-index(1) 2================== 3 4NAME 5---- 6git-merge-index - Run a merge for files needing merging 7 8 9SYNOPSIS 10-------- 11[verse] 12'git merge-index' [-o] [-q] <merge-program> (-a | [--] <file>*) 13 14DESCRIPTION 15----------- 16This looks up the <file>(s) in the index and, if there are any merge 17entries, passes the SHA1 hash for those files as arguments 1, 2, 3 (empty 18argument if no file), and <file> as argument 4. File modes for the three 19files are passed as arguments 5, 6 and 7. 20 21OPTIONS 22------- 23\--:: 24 Do not interpret any more arguments as options. 25 26-a:: 27 Run merge against all files in the index that need merging. 28 29-o:: 30 Instead of stopping at the first failed merge, do all of them 31 in one shot - continue with merging even when previous merges 32 returned errors, and only return the error code after all the 33 merges. 34 35-q:: 36 Do not complain about a failed merge program (a merge program 37 failure usually indicates conflicts during the merge). This is for 38 porcelains which might want to emit custom messages. 39 40If 'git merge-index' is called with multiple <file>s (or -a) then it 41processes them in turn only stopping if merge returns a non-zero exit 42code. 43 44Typically this is run with a script calling git's imitation of 45the 'merge' command from the RCS package. 46 47A sample script called 'git merge-one-file' is included in the 48distribution. 49 50ALERT ALERT ALERT! The git "merge object order" is different from the 51RCS 'merge' program merge object order. In the above ordering, the 52original is first. But the argument order to the 3-way merge program 53'merge' is to have the original in the middle. Don't ask me why. 54 55Examples: 56 57 torvalds@ppc970:~/merge-test> git merge-index cat MM 58 This is MM from the original tree. # original 59 This is modified MM in the branch A. # merge1 60 This is modified MM in the branch B. # merge2 61 This is modified MM in the branch B. # current contents 62 63or 64 65 torvalds@ppc970:~/merge-test> git merge-index cat AA MM 66 cat: : No such file or directory 67 This is added AA in the branch A. 68 This is added AA in the branch B. 69 This is added AA in the branch B. 70 fatal: merge program failed 71 72where the latter example shows how 'git merge-index' will stop trying to 73merge once anything has returned an error (i.e., `cat` returned an error 74for the AA file, because it didn't exist in the original, and thus 75'git merge-index' didn't even try to merge the MM thing). 76 77GIT 78--- 79Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite