MERGE STRATEGIES
----------------
+The merge mechanism ('git-merge' and 'git-pull' commands) allows the
+backend 'merge strategies' to be chosen with `-s` option. Some strategies
+can also take their own options, which can be passed by giving `-X<option>`
+arguments to 'git-merge' and/or 'git-pull'.
+
resolve::
This can only resolve two heads (i.e. the current branch
- and another branch you pulled from) using 3-way merge
+ and another branch you pulled from) using a 3-way merge
algorithm. It tries to carefully detect criss-cross
merge ambiguities and is considered generally safe and
fast.
recursive::
- This can only resolve two heads using 3-way merge
- algorithm. When there are more than one common
- ancestors that can be used for 3-way merge, it creates a
+ This can only resolve two heads using a 3-way merge
+ algorithm. When there is more than one common
+ ancestor that can be used for 3-way merge, it creates a
merged tree of the common ancestors and uses that as
the reference tree for the 3-way merge. This has been
reported to result in fewer merge conflicts without
Additionally this can detect and handle merges involving
renames. This is the default merge strategy when
pulling or merging one branch.
++
+The 'recursive' strategy can take the following options:
+
+ours;;
+ This option forces conflicting hunks to be auto-resolved cleanly by
+ favoring 'our' version. Changes from the other tree that do not
+ conflict with our side are reflected to the merge result.
++
+This should not be confused with the 'ours' merge strategy, which does not
+even look at what the other tree contains at all. It discards everything
+the other tree did, declaring 'our' history contains all that happened in it.
+
+theirs;;
+ This is opposite of 'ours'.
+
+subtree[=path];;
+ This option is a more advanced form of 'subtree' strategy, where
+ the strategy makes a guess on how two trees must be shifted to
+ match with each other when merging. Instead, the specified path
+ is prefixed (or stripped from the beginning) to make the shape of
+ two trees to match.
octopus::
- This resolves more than two-head case, but refuses to do
- complex merge that needs manual resolution. It is
+ This resolves cases with more than two heads, but refuses to do
+ a complex merge that needs manual resolution. It is
primarily meant to be used for bundling topic branch
heads together. This is the default merge strategy when
- pulling or merging more than one branches.
+ pulling or merging more than one branch.
ours::
- This resolves any number of heads, but the result of the
- merge is always the current branch head. It is meant to
+ This resolves any number of heads, but the resulting tree of the
+ merge is always that of the current branch head, effectively
+ ignoring all changes from all other branches. It is meant to
be used to supersede old development history of side
- branches.
+ branches. Note that this is different from the -Xours option to
+ the 'recursive' merge strategy.
subtree::
This is a modified recursive strategy. When merging trees A and