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$ git show :1:file.txt # the file in a common ancestor of both branches
-$ git show :2:file.txt # the version from HEAD, but including any
- # nonconflicting changes from MERGE_HEAD
-$ git show :3:file.txt # the version from MERGE_HEAD, but including any
- # nonconflicting changes from HEAD.
+$ git show :2:file.txt # the version from HEAD.
+$ git show :3:file.txt # the version from MERGE_HEAD.
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-Since the stage 2 and stage 3 versions have already been updated with
-nonconflicting changes, the only remaining differences between them are
-the important ones; thus linkgit:git-diff[1] can use the information in
-the index to show only those conflicts.
+When you ask linkgit:git-diff[1] to show the conflicts, it runs a
+three-way diff between the conflicted merge results in the work tree with
+stages 2 and 3 to show only hunks whose contents come from both sides,
+mixed (in other words, when a hunk's merge results come only from stage 2,
+that part is not conflicting and is not shown. Same for stage 3).
The diff above shows the differences between the working-tree version of
file.txt and the stage 2 and stage 3 versions. So instead of preceding