Documentation / git-am.txton commit Documentation: Add definition of "evil merge" to GIT Glossary (c1bab28)
   1git-am(1)
   2=========
   3
   4NAME
   5----
   6git-am - Apply a series of patches from a mailbox
   7
   8
   9SYNOPSIS
  10--------
  11[verse]
  12'git-am' [--signoff] [--dotest=<dir>] [--keep] [--utf8 | --no-utf8]
  13         [--3way] [--interactive] [--binary]
  14         [--whitespace=<option>] [-C<n>] [-p<n>]
  15         <mbox>...
  16'git-am' [--skip | --resolved]
  17
  18DESCRIPTION
  19-----------
  20Splits mail messages in a mailbox into commit log message,
  21authorship information and patches, and applies them to the
  22current branch.
  23
  24OPTIONS
  25-------
  26<mbox>...::
  27        The list of mailbox files to read patches from. If you do not
  28        supply this argument, reads from the standard input.
  29
  30-s, --signoff::
  31        Add `Signed-off-by:` line to the commit message, using
  32        the committer identity of yourself.
  33
  34-d=<dir>, --dotest=<dir>::
  35        Instead of `.dotest` directory, use <dir> as a working
  36        area to store extracted patches.
  37
  38-k, --keep::
  39        Pass `-k` flag to `git-mailinfo` (see gitlink:git-mailinfo[1]).
  40
  41-u, --utf8::
  42        Pass `-u` flag to `git-mailinfo` (see gitlink:git-mailinfo[1]).
  43        The proposed commit log message taken from the e-mail
  44        is re-coded into UTF-8 encoding (configuration variable
  45        `i18n.commitencoding` can be used to specify project's
  46        preferred encoding if it is not UTF-8).
  47+
  48This was optional in prior versions of git, but now it is the
  49default.   You could use `--no-utf8` to override this.
  50
  51--no-utf8::
  52        Pass `-n` flag to `git-mailinfo` (see
  53        gitlink:git-mailinfo[1]).
  54
  55-3, --3way::
  56        When the patch does not apply cleanly, fall back on
  57        3-way merge, if the patch records the identity of blobs
  58        it is supposed to apply to, and we have those blobs
  59        available locally.
  60
  61-b, --binary::
  62        Pass `--allow-binary-replacement` flag to `git-apply`
  63        (see gitlink:git-apply[1]).
  64
  65--whitespace=<option>::
  66        This flag is passed to the `git-apply` (see gitlink:git-apply[1])
  67        program that applies
  68        the patch.
  69
  70-C<n>, -p<n>::
  71        These flags are passed to the `git-apply` (see gitlink:git-apply[1])
  72        program that applies
  73        the patch.
  74
  75-i, --interactive::
  76        Run interactively.
  77
  78--skip::
  79        Skip the current patch.  This is only meaningful when
  80        restarting an aborted patch.
  81
  82-r, --resolved::
  83        After a patch failure (e.g. attempting to apply
  84        conflicting patch), the user has applied it by hand and
  85        the index file stores the result of the application.
  86        Make a commit using the authorship and commit log
  87        extracted from the e-mail message and the current index
  88        file, and continue.
  89
  90--resolvemsg=<msg>::
  91        When a patch failure occurs, <msg> will be printed
  92        to the screen before exiting.  This overrides the
  93        standard message informing you to use `--resolved`
  94        or `--skip` to handle the failure.  This is solely
  95        for internal use between `git-rebase` and `git-am`.
  96
  97DISCUSSION
  98----------
  99
 100The commit author name is taken from the "From: " line of the
 101message, and commit author time is taken from the "Date: " line
 102of the message.  The "Subject: " line is used as the title of
 103the commit, after stripping common prefix "[PATCH <anything>]".
 104It is supposed to describe what the commit is about concisely as
 105a one line text.
 106
 107The body of the message (iow, after a blank line that terminates
 108RFC2822 headers) can begin with "Subject: " and "From: " lines
 109that are different from those of the mail header, to override
 110the values of these fields.
 111
 112The commit message is formed by the title taken from the
 113"Subject: ", a blank line and the body of the message up to
 114where the patch begins.  Excess whitespaces at the end of the
 115lines are automatically stripped.
 116
 117The patch is expected to be inline, directly following the
 118message.  Any line that is of form:
 119
 120* three-dashes and end-of-line, or
 121* a line that begins with "diff -", or
 122* a line that begins with "Index: "
 123
 124is taken as the beginning of a patch, and the commit log message
 125is terminated before the first occurrence of such a line.
 126
 127When initially invoking it, you give it names of the mailboxes
 128to crunch.  Upon seeing the first patch that does not apply, it
 129aborts in the middle, just like 'git-applymbox' does.  You can
 130recover from this in one of two ways:
 131
 132. skip the current patch by re-running the command with '--skip'
 133  option.
 134
 135. hand resolve the conflict in the working directory, and update
 136  the index file to bring it in a state that the patch should
 137  have produced.  Then run the command with '--resolved' option.
 138
 139The command refuses to process new mailboxes while `.dotest`
 140directory exists, so if you decide to start over from scratch,
 141run `rm -f .dotest` before running the command with mailbox
 142names.
 143
 144
 145SEE ALSO
 146--------
 147gitlink:git-applymbox[1], gitlink:git-applypatch[1], gitlink:git-apply[1].
 148
 149
 150Author
 151------
 152Written by Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
 153
 154Documentation
 155--------------
 156Documentation by Petr Baudis, Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.
 157
 158GIT
 159---
 160Part of the gitlink:git[7] suite
 161