NAME
----
-git-merge - Grand Unified Merge Driver
+git-merge - Join two or more development histories together
SYNOPSIS
--------
-'git-merge' [-n] [--no-commit] [-s <strategy>]... <msg> <head> <remote> <remote>...
-
+[verse]
+'git-merge' [-n] [--summary] [--no-commit] [--squash] [-s <strategy>]...
+ [-m <msg>] <remote> <remote>...
DESCRIPTION
-----------
-This is the top-level user interface to the merge machinery
+This is the top-level interface to the merge machinery
which drives multiple merge strategy scripts.
to give a good default for automated `git-merge` invocations.
<head>::
- our branch head commit.
+ Our branch head commit. This has to be `HEAD`, so new
+ syntax does not require it
<remote>::
- other branch head merged into our branch. You need at
+ Other branch head merged into our branch. You need at
least one <remote>. Specifying more than one <remote>
obviously means you are trying an Octopus.
include::merge-strategies.txt[]
+If you tried a merge which resulted in a complex conflicts and
+would want to start over, you can recover with
+gitlink:git-reset[1].
+
+CONFIGURATION
+-------------
+
+merge.summary::
+ Whether to include summaries of merged commits in newly
+ created merge commit. False by default.
+
+merge.verbosity::
+ Controls the amount of output shown by the recursive merge
+ strategy. Level 0 outputs nothing except a final error
+ message if conflicts were detected. Level 1 outputs only
+ conflicts, 2 outputs conflicts and file changes. Level 5 and
+ above outputs debugging information. The default is level 2.
+ Can be overriden by 'GIT_MERGE_VERBOSITY' environment variable.
+
+
HOW MERGE WORKS
---------------
stops before touching anything.
So in the above two "failed merge" case, you do not have to
-worry about lossage of data --- you simply were not ready to do
+worry about loss of data --- you simply were not ready to do
a merge, so no merge happened at all. You may want to finish
whatever you were in the middle of doing, and retry the same
pull after you are done and ready.
When things cleanly merge, these things happen:
-1. the results are updated both in the index file and in your
- working tree,
-2. index file is written out as a tree,
-3. the tree gets committed, and
-4. the `HEAD` pointer gets advanced.
+1. The results are updated both in the index file and in your
+ working tree;
+2. Index file is written out as a tree;
+3. The tree gets committed; and
+4. The `HEAD` pointer gets advanced.
Because of 2., we require that the original state of the index
file to match exactly the current `HEAD` commit; otherwise we
* Resolve the conflicts. `git-diff` would report only the
conflicting paths because of the above 2. and 3.. Edit the
- working tree files into a desirable shape, `git-update-index`
+ working tree files into a desirable shape, `git-add` or `git-rm`
them, to make the index file contain what the merge result
should be, and run `git-commit` to commit the result.