git-merge-index(1) ================== NAME ---- git-merge-index - Run a merge for files needing merging SYNOPSIS -------- 'git merge-index' [-o] [-q] (-a | [--] \*) DESCRIPTION ----------- This looks up the (s) in the index and, if there are any merge entries, passes the SHA1 hash for those files as arguments 1, 2, 3 (empty argument if no file), and as argument 4. File modes for the three files are passed as arguments 5, 6 and 7. OPTIONS ------- \--:: Do not interpret any more arguments as options. -a:: Run merge against all files in the index that need merging. -o:: Instead of stopping at the first failed merge, do all of them in one shot - continue with merging even when previous merges returned errors, and only return the error code after all the merges are over. -q:: Do not complain about failed merge program (the merge program failure usually indicates conflicts during merge). This is for porcelains which might want to emit custom messages. If 'git-merge-index' is called with multiple s (or -a) then it processes them in turn only stopping if merge returns a non-zero exit code. Typically this is run with a script calling git's imitation of the 'merge' command from the RCS package. A sample script called 'git-merge-one-file' is included in the distribution. ALERT ALERT ALERT! The git "merge object order" is different from the RCS `merge` program merge object order. In the above ordering, the original is first. But the argument order to the 3-way merge program `merge` is to have the original in the middle. Don't ask me why. Examples: torvalds@ppc970:~/merge-test> git merge-index cat MM This is MM from the original tree. # original This is modified MM in the branch A. # merge1 This is modified MM in the branch B. # merge2 This is modified MM in the branch B. # current contents or torvalds@ppc970:~/merge-test> git merge-index cat AA MM cat: : No such file or directory This is added AA in the branch A. This is added AA in the branch B. This is added AA in the branch B. fatal: merge program failed where the latter example shows how 'git-merge-index' will stop trying to merge once anything has returned an error (i.e., `cat` returned an error for the AA file, because it didn't exist in the original, and thus 'git-merge-index' didn't even try to merge the MM thing). Author ------ Written by Linus Torvalds One-shot merge by Petr Baudis Documentation -------------- Documentation by David Greaves, Junio C Hamano and the git-list . GIT --- Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite