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 a 3-way merge
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'.
+
+patience;;
+ With this option, 'merge-recursive' spends a little extra time
+ to avoid mismerges that sometimes occur due to unimportant
+ matching lines (e.g., braces from distinct functions). Use
+ this when the branches to be merged have diverged wildly.
+ See also linkgit:git-diff[1] `--patience`.
+
+ignore-space-change;;
+ignore-all-space;;
+ignore-space-at-eol;;
+ Treats lines with the indicated type of whitespace change as
+ unchanged for the sake of a three-way merge. Whitespace
+ changes mixed with other changes to a line are not ignored.
+ See also linkgit:git-diff[1] `-b`, `-w`, and
+ `--ignore-space-at-eol`.
++
+* If 'their' version only introduces whitespace changes to a line,
+ 'our' version is used;
+* If 'our' version introduces whitespace changes but 'their'
+ version includes a substantial change, 'their' version is used;
+* Otherwise, the merge proceeds in the usual way.
+
+renormalize;;
+ This runs a virtual check-out and check-in of all three stages
+ of a file when resolving a three-way merge. This option is
+ meant to be used when merging branches with different clean
+ filters or end-of-line normalization rules. See "Merging
+ branches with differing checkin/checkout attributes" in
+ linkgit:gitattributes[5] for details.
+
+no-renormalize;;
+ Disables the `renormalize` option. This overrides the
+ `merge.renormalize` configuration variable.
+
+rename-threshold=<n>;;
+ Controls the similarity threshold used for rename detection.
+ See also linkgit:git-diff[1] `-M`.
+
+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 cases with more than two heads, but refuses to do
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