# git-merge

## NAME



           git-merge - Join two or more development histories together
    


## SYNOPSIS



           **git merge**[**-n**] [**--stat**] [**--compact-summary**] [**--no-commit**] [**--squash**] [**--**[**no-**]**edit**]
                   [**--no-verify**] [**-s** _< strategy>_] [**-X** _< strategy-option>_] [**-S**[_< keyid>_]]
                   [**--**[**no-**]**allow-unrelated-histories**]
                   [**--**[**no-**]**rerere-autoupdate**] [**-m** _< msg>_] [**-F** _< file>_]
                   [**--into-name** _< branch>_] [_< commit>_...]
           **git merge**(**--continue** | **--abort** | **--quit**)
    


## DESCRIPTION



           Incorporates changes from the named commits (since the time their
           histories diverged from the current branch) into the current
           branch. This command is used by **git pull** to incorporate changes
           from another repository and can be used by hand to merge changes
           from one branch into another.
    
           Assume the following history exists and the current branch is
           **master** :
    
                         A---B---C topic
                        /
                   D---E---F---G master
    
           Then **git merge topic** will replay the changes made on the **topic**
           branch since it diverged from **master**(i.e., **E**) until its current
           commit (**C**) on top of **master** , and record the result in a new commit
           along with the names of the two parent commits and a log message
           from the user describing the changes. Before the operation,
           **ORIG_HEAD** is set to the tip of the current branch (**G**).
    
                         A---B---C topic
                        /         \
                   D---E---F---G---H master
    
           A merge stops if there’s a conflict that cannot be resolved
           automatically or if **--no-commit** was provided when initiating the
           merge. At that point you can run **git merge --abort** or **git merge**
           **--continue**.
    
           **git merge --abort** will abort the merge process and try to
           reconstruct the pre-merge state. However, if there were
           uncommitted changes when the merge started (and especially if
           those changes were further modified after the merge was started),
           **git merge --abort** will in some cases be unable to reconstruct the
           original (pre-merge) changes. Therefore:
    
               **Warning**
    
               Running **git merge** with non-trivial uncommitted changes is
               discouraged: while possible, it may leave you in a state that
               is hard to back out of in the case of a conflict.
    


## OPTIONS



           **--commit** , **--no-commit**
               Perform the merge and commit the result. This option can be
               used to override **--no-commit**.
    
               With **--no-commit** perform the merge and stop just before
               creating a merge commit, to give the user a chance to inspect
               and further tweak the merge result before committing.
    
               Note that fast-forward updates do not create a merge commit
               and therefore there is no way to stop those merges with
               **--no-commit**. Thus, if you want to ensure your branch is not
               changed or updated by the merge command, use **--no-ff** with
               **--no-commit**.
    
           **--edit** , **-e** , **--no-edit**
               Invoke an editor before committing successful mechanical merge
               to further edit the auto-generated merge message, so that the
               user can explain and justify the merge. The **--no-edit** option
               can be used to accept the auto-generated message (this is
               generally discouraged). The **--edit**(or **-e**) option is still
               useful if you are giving a draft message with the **-m** option
               from the command line and want to edit it in the editor.
    
               Older scripts may depend on the historical behaviour of not
               allowing the user to edit the merge log message. They will see
               an editor opened when they run **git merge**. To make it easier to
               adjust such scripts to the updated behaviour, the environment
               variable **GIT_MERGE_AUTOEDIT** can be set to **no** at the beginning
               of them.
    
           **--cleanup=**_< mode>_
               This option determines how the merge message will be cleaned
               up before committing. See git-commit(1) for more details. In
               addition, if the _< mode>_ is given a value of **scissors** , scissors
               will be appended to **MERGE_MSG** before being passed on to the
               commit machinery in the case of a merge conflict.
    
           **--ff** , **--no-ff** , **--ff-only**
               Specifies how a merge is handled when the merged-in history is
               already a descendant of the current history.  **--ff** is the
               default unless merging an annotated (and possibly signed) tag
               that is not stored in its natural place in the **refs/tags/**
               hierarchy, in which case **--no-ff** is assumed.
    
               With **--ff** , when possible resolve the merge as a fast-forward
               (only update the branch pointer to match the merged branch; do
               not create a merge commit). When not possible (when the
               merged-in history is not a descendant of the current history),
               create a merge commit.
    
               With **--no-ff** , create a merge commit in all cases, even when
               the merge could instead be resolved as a fast-forward.
    
               With **--ff-only** , resolve the merge as a fast-forward when
               possible. When not possible, refuse to merge and exit with a
               non-zero status.
    
           **-S**[_< key-id>_], **--gpg-sign**[**=**_< key-id>_], **--no-gpg-sign**
               GPG-sign the resulting merge commit. The _< key-id>_ argument is
               optional and defaults to the committer identity; if specified,
               it must be stuck to the option without a space.  **--no-gpg-sign**
               is useful to countermand both **commit.gpgSign** configuration
               variable, and earlier **--gpg-sign**.
    
           **--log**[**=**_< n>_], **--no-log**
               In addition to branch names, populate the log message with
               one-line descriptions from at most _< n>_ actual commits that are
               being merged. See also git-fmt-merge-msg(1).
    
               With **--no-log** do not list one-line descriptions from the
               actual commits being merged.
    
           **--signoff** , **--no-signoff**
               Add a **Signed-off-by** trailer by the committer at the end of the
               commit log message. The meaning of a signoff depends on the
               project to which you’re committing. For example, it may
               certify that the committer has the rights to submit the work
               under the project’s license or agrees to some contributor
               representation, such as a Developer Certificate of Origin.
               (See **https://developercertificate.org******for the one used by the
               Linux kernel and Git projects.) Consult the documentation or
               leadership of the project to which you’re contributing to
               understand how the signoffs are used in that project.
    
               The**--no-signoff** option can be used to countermand an earlier
               **--signoff** option on the command line.
    
           **--stat** , **-n** , **--no-stat**
               Show a diffstat at the end of the merge. The diffstat is also
               controlled by the configuration option merge.stat.
    
               With **-n** or **--no-stat** do not show a diffstat at the end of the
               merge.
    
           **--compact-summary**
               Show a compact-summary at the end of the merge.
    
           **--squash** , **--no-squash**
               Produce the working tree and index state as if a real merge
               happened (except for the merge information), but do not
               actually make a commit, move the **HEAD** , or record
               **$GIT_DIR/MERGE_HEAD**(to cause the next **git commit** command to
               create a merge commit). This allows you to create a single
               commit on top of the current branch whose effect is the same
               as merging another branch (or more in case of an octopus).
    
               With **--no-squash** perform the merge and commit the result. This
               option can be used to override **--squash**.
    
               With **--squash** , **--commit** is not allowed, and will fail.
    
           **--**[**no-**]**verify**
               By default, the pre-merge and commit-msg hooks are run. When
               **--no-verify** is given, these are bypassed. See also
               githooks(5).
    
           **-s** _< strategy>_, **--strategy=**_< strategy>_
               Use the given merge strategy; can be supplied more than once
               to specify them in the order they should be tried. If there is
               no **-s** option, a built-in list of strategies is used instead
               (**ort** when merging a single head, **octopus** otherwise).
    
           **-X** _< option>_, **--strategy-option=**_< option>_
               Pass merge strategy specific option through to the merge
               strategy.
    
           **--verify-signatures** , **--no-verify-signatures**
               Verify that the tip commit of the side branch being merged is
               signed with a valid key, i.e. a key that has a valid uid: in
               the default trust model, this means the signing key has been
               signed by a trusted key. If the tip commit of the side branch
               is not signed with a valid key, the merge is aborted.
    
           **--summary** , **--no-summary**
               Synonyms to **--stat** and **--no-stat** ; these are deprecated and
               will be removed in the future.
    
           **-q** , **--quiet**
               Operate quietly. Implies **--no-progress**.
    
           **-v** , **--verbose**
               Be verbose.
    
           **--progress** , **--no-progress**
               Turn progress on/off explicitly. If neither is specified,
               progress is shown if standard error is connected to a
               terminal. Note that not all merge strategies may support
               progress reporting.
    
           **--autostash** , **--no-autostash**
               Automatically create a temporary stash entry before the
               operation begins, record it in the ref **MERGE_AUTOSTASH** and
               apply it after the operation ends. This means that you can run
               the operation on a dirty worktree. However, use with care: the
               final stash application after a successful merge might result
               in non-trivial conflicts.
    
           **--allow-unrelated-histories**
               By default, **git merge** command refuses to merge histories that
               do not share a common ancestor. This option can be used to
               override this safety when merging histories of two projects
               that started their lives independently. As that is a very rare
               occasion, no configuration variable to enable this by default
               exists or will be added.
    
           **-m** _< msg>_
               Set the commit message to be used for the merge commit (in
               case one is created).
    
               If **--log** is specified, a shortlog of the commits being merged
               will be appended to the specified message.
    
               The **git fmt-merge-msg** command can be used to give a good
               default for automated **git merge** invocations. The automated
               message can include the branch description.
    
           **--into-name** _< branch>_
               Prepare the default merge message as if merging to the branch
               _< branch>_, instead of the name of the real branch to which the
               merge is made.
    
           **-F** _< file>_, **--file=**_< file>_
               Read the commit message to be used for the merge commit (in
               case one is created).
    
               If **--log** is specified, a shortlog of the commits being merged
               will be appended to the specified message.
    
           **--rerere-autoupdate** , **--no-rerere-autoupdate**
               After the rerere mechanism reuses a recorded resolution on the
               current conflict to update the files in the working tree,
               allow it to also update the index with the result of
               resolution.  **--no-rerere-autoupdate** is a good way to
               double-check what **rerere** did and catch potential mismerges,
               before committing the result to the index with a separate **git**
               **add**.
    
           **--overwrite-ignore** , **--no-overwrite-ignore**
               Silently overwrite ignored files from the merge result. This
               is the default behavior. Use **--no-overwrite-ignore** to abort.
    
           **--abort**
               Abort the current conflict resolution process, and try to
               reconstruct the pre-merge state. If an autostash entry is
               present, apply it to the worktree.
    
               If there were uncommitted worktree changes present when the
               merge started, **git merge --abort** will in some cases be unable
               to reconstruct these changes. It is therefore recommended to
               always commit or stash your changes before running **git merge**.
    
               **git merge --abort** is equivalent to **git reset --merge** when
               **MERGE_HEAD** is present unless **MERGE_AUTOSTASH** is also present
               in which case **git merge --abort** applies the stash entry to the
               worktree whereas **git reset --merge** will save the stashed
               changes in the stash list.
    
           **--quit**
               Forget about the current merge in progress. Leave the index
               and the working tree as-is. If **MERGE_AUTOSTASH** is present, the
               stash entry will be saved to the stash list.
    
           **--continue**
               After a **git merge** stops due to conflicts you can conclude the
               merge by running **git merge --continue**(see "HOW TO RESOLVE
               CONFLICTS" section below).
    
           _< commit>_...
               Commits, usually other branch heads, to merge into our branch.
               Specifying more than one commit will create a merge with more
               than two parents (affectionately called an Octopus merge).
    
               If no commit is given from the command line, merge the
               remote-tracking branches that the current branch is configured
               to use as its upstream. See also the configuration section of
               this manual page.
    
               When **FETCH_HEAD**(and no other commit) is specified, the
               branches recorded in the **.git/FETCH_HEAD** file by the previous
               invocation of **git fetch** for merging are merged to the current
               branch.
    


## PRE-MERGE CHECKS



           Before applying outside changes, you should get your own work in
           good shape and committed locally, so it will not be clobbered if
           there are conflicts. See also git-stash(1). **git pull** and **git merge**
           will stop without doing anything when local uncommitted changes
           overlap with files that **git pull** /**git merge** may need to update.
    
           To avoid recording unrelated changes in the merge commit, **git pull**
           and **git merge** will also abort if there are any changes registered
           in the index relative to the **HEAD** commit. (Special narrow
           exceptions to this rule may exist depending on which merge
           strategy is in use, but generally, the index must match **HEAD**.)
    
           If all named commits are already ancestors of **HEAD** , **git merge** will
           exit early with the message "Already up to date."
    


## FAST-FORWARD MERGE



           Often the current branch head is an ancestor of the named commit.
           This is the most common case especially when invoked from **git**
           **pull** : you are tracking an upstream repository, you have committed
           no local changes, and now you want to update to a newer upstream
           revision. In this case, a new commit is not needed to store the
           combined history; instead, the **HEAD**(along with the index) is
           updated to point at the named commit, without creating an extra
           merge commit.
    
           This behavior can be suppressed with the **--no-ff** option.
    


## TRUE MERGE



           Except in a fast-forward merge (see above), the branches to be
           merged must be tied together by a merge commit that has both of
           them as its parents.
    
           A merged version reconciling the changes from all branches to be
           merged is committed, and your **HEAD** , index, and working tree are
           updated to it. It is possible to have modifications in the working
           tree as long as they do not overlap; the update will preserve
           them.
    
           When it is not obvious how to reconcile the changes, the following
           happens:
    
            1. The **HEAD** pointer stays the same.
    
            2. The **MERGE_HEAD** ref is set to point to the other branch head.
    
            3. Paths that merged cleanly are updated both in the index file
               and in your working tree.
    
            4. For conflicting paths, the index file records up to three
               versions: stage 1 stores the version from the common ancestor,
               stage 2 from **HEAD** , and stage 3 from **MERGE_HEAD**(you can
               inspect the stages with **git ls-files -u**). The working tree
               files contain the result of the merge operation; i.e. 3-way
               merge results with familiar conflict markers **< << === >>>**.
    
            5. A ref named **AUTO_MERGE** is written, pointing to a tree
               corresponding to the current content of the working tree
               (including conflict markers for textual conflicts). Note that
               this ref is only written when the **ort** merge strategy is used
               (the default).
    
            6. No other changes are made. In particular, the local
               modifications you had before you started merge will stay the
               same and the index entries for them stay as they were, i.e.
               matching **HEAD**.
    
           If you tried a merge which resulted in complex conflicts and want
           to start over, you can recover with **git merge --abort**.
    


## MERGING TAG



           When merging an annotated (and possibly signed) tag, Git always
           creates a merge commit even if a fast-forward merge is possible,
           and the commit message template is prepared with the tag message.
           Additionally, if the tag is signed, the signature check is
           reported as a comment in the message template. See also
           git-tag(1).
    
           When you want to just integrate with the work leading to the
           commit that happens to be tagged, e.g. synchronizing with an
           upstream release point, you may not want to make an unnecessary
           merge commit.
    
           In such a case, you can "unwrap" the tag yourself before feeding
           it to **git merge** , or pass **--ff-only** when you do not have any work
           on your own. e.g.
    
               git fetch origin
               git merge v1.2.3^0
               git merge --ff-only v1.2.3
    


## HOW CONFLICTS ARE PRESENTED



           During a merge, the working tree files are updated to reflect the
           result of the merge. Among the changes made to the common
           ancestor’s version, non-overlapping ones (that is, you changed an
           area of the file while the other side left that area intact, or
           vice versa) are incorporated in the final result verbatim. When
           both sides made changes to the same area, however, Git cannot
           randomly pick one side over the other, and asks you to resolve it
           by leaving what both sides did to that area.
    
           By default, Git uses the same style as the one used by the "merge"
           program from the RCS suite to present such a conflicted hunk, like
           this:
    
               Here are lines that are either unchanged from the common
               ancestor, or cleanly resolved because only one side changed,
               or cleanly resolved because both sides changed the same way.
               <<<<<<< yours:sample.txt
               Conflict resolution is hard;
               let's go shopping.
               =======
               Git makes conflict resolution easy.
               >>>>>>> theirs:sample.txt
               And here is another line that is cleanly resolved or unmodified.
    
           The area where a pair of conflicting changes happened is marked
           with markers **< <<<<<<**, **=======** , and **> >>>>>>**. The part before the
           **=======** is typically your side, and the part afterwards is
           typically their side.
    
           The default format does not show what the original said in the
           conflicting area. You cannot tell how many lines are deleted and
           replaced with Barbie’s remark on your side. The only thing you can
           tell is that your side wants to say it is hard and you’d prefer to
           go shopping, while the other side wants to claim it is easy.
    
           An alternative style can be used by setting the
           **merge.conflictStyle** configuration variable to either **diff3** or
           **zdiff3**. In **diff3** style, the above conflict may look like this:
    
               Here are lines that are either unchanged from the common
               ancestor, or cleanly resolved because only one side changed,
               <<<<<<< yours:sample.txt
               or cleanly resolved because both sides changed the same way.
               Conflict resolution is hard;
               let's go shopping.
               ||||||| base:sample.txt
               or cleanly resolved because both sides changed identically.
               Conflict resolution is hard.
               =======
               or cleanly resolved because both sides changed the same way.
               Git makes conflict resolution easy.
               >>>>>>> theirs:sample.txt
               And here is another line that is cleanly resolved or unmodified.
    
           while in **zdiff3** style, it may look like this:
    
               Here are lines that are either unchanged from the common
               ancestor, or cleanly resolved because only one side changed,
               or cleanly resolved because both sides changed the same way.
               <<<<<<< yours:sample.txt
               Conflict resolution is hard;
               let's go shopping.
               ||||||| base:sample.txt
               or cleanly resolved because both sides changed identically.
               Conflict resolution is hard.
               =======
               Git makes conflict resolution easy.
               >>>>>>> theirs:sample.txt
               And here is another line that is cleanly resolved or unmodified.
    
           In addition to the **< <<<<<<**, **=======** , and **> >>>>>> **markers, it uses
           another **|||||||** marker that is followed by the original text. You
           can tell that the original just stated a fact, and your side
           simply gave in to that statement and gave up, while the other side
           tried to have a more positive attitude. You can sometimes come up
           with a better resolution by viewing the original.
    


## HOW TO RESOLVE CONFLICTS



           After seeing a conflict, you can do two things:
    
           •   Decide not to merge. The only clean-ups you need are to reset
               the index file to the **HEAD** commit to reverse 2. and to clean
               up working tree changes made by 2. and 3.; **git merge --abort**
               can be used for this.
    
           •   Resolve the conflicts. Git will mark the conflicts in the
               working tree. Edit the files into shape and **git add** them to
               the index. Use **git commit** or **git merge --continue** to seal the
               deal. The latter command checks whether there is a
               (interrupted) merge in progress before calling **git commit**.
    
           You can work through the conflict with a number of tools:
    
           •   Use a mergetool.  **git mergetool** to launch a graphical
               mergetool which will work through the merge with you.
    
           •   Look at the diffs.  **git diff** will show a three-way diff,
               highlighting changes from both the **HEAD** and **MERGE_HEAD**
               versions.  **git diff AUTO_MERGE** will show what changes you’ve
               made so far to resolve textual conflicts.
    
           •   Look at the diffs from each branch.  **git log --merge -p** _< path>_
               will show diffs first for the **HEAD** version and then the
               **MERGE_HEAD** version.
    
           •   Look at the originals.  **git show :1:filename** shows the common
               ancestor, **git show :2:filename** shows the **HEAD** version, and **git**
               **show :3:filename** shows the **MERGE_HEAD** version.
    


## EXAMPLES



           •   Merge branches **fixes** and **enhancements** on top of the current
               branch, making an octopus merge:
    
                   $ git merge fixes enhancements
    
           •   Merge branch **obsolete** into the current branch, using **ours**
               merge strategy:
    
                   $ git merge -s ours obsolete
    
           •   Merge branch **maint** into the current branch, but do not make a
               new commit automatically:
    
                   $ git merge --no-commit maint
    
               This can be used when you want to include further changes to
               the merge, or want to write your own merge commit message.
    
               You should refrain from abusing this option to sneak
               substantial changes into a merge commit. Small fixups like
               bumping release/version name would be acceptable.
    


## 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**.
    
           **ort**
               This is the default merge strategy when pulling or merging one
               branch. This strategy 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 causing mismerges by tests done on
               actual merge commits taken from Linux 2.6 kernel development
               history. Additionally this strategy can detect and handle
               merges involving renames. It does not make use of detected
               copies. The name for this algorithm is an acronym ("Ostensibly
               Recursive’s Twin") and came from the fact that it was written
               as a replacement for the previous default algorithm,
               **recursive**.
    
               In the case where the path is a submodule, if the submodule
               commit used on one side of the merge is a descendant of the
               submodule commit used on the other side of the merge, Git
               attempts to fast-forward to the descendant. Otherwise, Git
               will treat this case as a conflict, suggesting as a resolution
               a submodule commit that is descendant of the conflicting ones,
               if one exists.
    
               The **ort** 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 in
                   the merge result. For a binary file, the entire contents
                   are taken from our side.
    
                   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 the opposite of **ours** ; note that, unlike **ours** ,
                   there is no **theirs** merge strategy to confuse this merge
                   option with.
    
               **ignore-space-change** , **ignore-all-space** , **ignore-space-at-eol** ,
               **ignore-cr-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 git-diff(1) **-b** , **-w** ,
                   **--ignore-space-at-eol** , and **--ignore-cr-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 any file which needs 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 gitattributes(5) for
                   details.
    
               **no-renormalize**
                   Disables the **renormalize** option. This overrides the
                   **merge.renormalize** configuration variable.
    
               **find-renames**[**=**_< n>_]
                   Turn on rename detection, optionally setting the
                   similarity threshold. This is the default. This overrides
                   the **merge.renames** configuration variable. See also
                   git-diff(1) **--find-renames**.
    
               **rename-threshold=**_< n>_
                   Deprecated synonym for **find-renames=**_< n>_.
    
               **no-renames**
                   Turn off rename detection. This overrides the
                   **merge.renames** configuration variable. See also git-diff(1)
                   **--no-renames**.
    
               **histogram**
                   Deprecated synonym for **diff-algorithm=histogram**.
    
               **patience**
                   Deprecated synonym for **diff-algorithm=patience**.
    
               **diff-algorithm=**(**histogram** |**minimal** |**myers** |**patience**)
                   Use a different diff algorithm while merging, which can
                   help avoid mismerges that occur due to unimportant
                   matching lines (such as braces from distinct functions).
                   See also git-diff(1) **--diff-algorithm**. Note that **ort**
                   defaults to **diff-algorithm=histogram** , while regular diffs
                   currently default to the **diff.algorithm** config setting.
    
               **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.
    
           **recursive**
               This is now a synonym for **ort**. It was an alternative
               implementation until v2.49.0, but was redirected to mean **ort**
               in v2.50.0. The previous recursive strategy was the default
               strategy for resolving two heads from Git v0.99.9k until
               v2.33.0.
    
           **resolve**
               This can only resolve two heads (i.e. the current branch and
               another branch you pulled from) using a 3-way merge algorithm.
               It tries to carefully detect criss-cross merge ambiguities. It
               does not handle renames.
    
           **octopus**
               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 branch.
    
           **ours**
               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. Note that this is different from the **-Xours**
               option to the **ort** merge strategy.
    
           **subtree**
               This is a modified **ort** strategy. When merging trees A and B,
               if B corresponds to a subtree of A, B is first adjusted to
               match the tree structure of A, instead of reading the trees at
               the same level. This adjustment is also done to the common
               ancestor tree.
    
           With the strategies that use 3-way merge (including the default,
           **ort**), if a change is made on both branches, but later reverted on
           one of the branches, that change will be present in the merged
           result; some people find this behavior confusing. It occurs
           because only the heads and the merge base are considered when
           performing a merge, not the individual commits. The merge
           algorithm therefore considers the reverted change as no change at
           all, and substitutes the changed version instead.
    


## CONFIGURATION



           **branch.**_< name>_**.mergeOptions**
               Sets default options for merging into branch _< name>_. The
               syntax and supported options are the same as those of **git**
               **merge** , but option values containing whitespace characters are
               currently not supported.
    
           Everything above this line in this section isn’t included from the
           git-config(1) documentation. The content that follows is the same
           as what’s found there:
    
           **merge.conflictStyle**
               Specify the style in which conflicted hunks are written out to
               working tree files upon merge. The default is "merge", which
               shows a **< <<<<<< **conflict marker, changes made by one side, a
               **=======** marker, changes made by the other side, and then a
               **> >>>>>> **marker. An alternate style, "diff3", adds a **|||||||**
               marker and the original text before the **=======** marker. The
               "merge" style tends to produce smaller conflict regions than
               diff3, both because of the exclusion of the original text, and
               because when a subset of lines match on the two sides, they
               are just pulled out of the conflict region. Another alternate
               style, "zdiff3", is similar to diff3 but removes matching
               lines on the two sides from the conflict region when those
               matching lines appear near either the beginning or end of a
               conflict region.
    
           **merge.defaultToUpstream**
               If merge is called without any commit argument, merge the
               upstream branches configured for the current branch by using
               their last observed values stored in their remote-tracking
               branches. The values of the **branch.** <current **branch** >**.merge** that
               name the branches at the remote named by
               **branch.**_< current-branch>_**.remote** are consulted, and then they
               are mapped via **remote.**_< remote>_**.fetch** to their corresponding
               remote-tracking branches, and the tips of these tracking
               branches are merged. Defaults to true.
    
           **merge.ff**
               By default, Git does not create an extra merge commit when
               merging a commit that is a descendant of the current commit.
               Instead, the tip of the current branch is fast-forwarded. When
               set to **false** , this variable tells Git to create an extra merge
               commit in such a case (equivalent to giving the **--no-ff** option
               from the command line). When set to **only** , only such
               fast-forward merges are allowed (equivalent to giving the
               **--ff-only** option from the command line).
    
           **merge.verifySignatures**
               If true, this is equivalent to the **--verify-signatures** command
               line option. See git-merge(1) for details.
    
           **merge.branchdesc**
               In addition to branch names, populate the log message with the
               branch description text associated with them. Defaults to
               false.
    
           **merge.log**
               In addition to branch names, populate the log message with at
               most the specified number of one-line descriptions from the
               actual commits that are being merged. Defaults to false, and
               true is a synonym for 20.
    
           **merge.suppressDest**
               By adding a glob that matches the names of integration
               branches to this multi-valued configuration variable, the
               default merge message computed for merges into these
               integration branches will omit "into _< branch-name>_" from its
               title.
    
               An element with an empty value can be used to clear the list
               of globs accumulated from previous configuration entries. When
               there is no **merge.suppressDest** variable defined, the default
               value of **master** is used for backward compatibility.
    
           **merge.renameLimit**
               The number of files to consider in the exhaustive portion of
               rename detection during a merge. If not specified, defaults to
               the value of **diff.renameLimit**. If neither **merge.renameLimit**
               nor **diff.renameLimit** are specified, currently defaults to
               7000. This setting has no effect if rename detection is turned
               off.
    
           **merge.renames**
               Whether Git detects renames. If set to **false** , rename detection
               is disabled. If set to **true** , basic rename detection is
               enabled. Defaults to the value of diff.renames.
    
           **merge.directoryRenames**
               Whether Git detects directory renames, affecting what happens
               at merge time to new files added to a directory on one side of
               history when that directory was renamed on the other side of
               history. Possible values are:
    
               **false**
                   Directory rename detection is disabled, meaning that such
                   new files will be left behind in the old directory.
    
               **true**
                   Directory rename detection is enabled, meaning that such
                   new files will be moved into the new directory.
    
               **conflict**
                   A conflict will be reported for such paths.
    
               If **merge.renames** is **false** , **merge.directoryRenames** is ignored
               and treated as **false**. Defaults to **conflict**.
    
           **merge.renormalize**
               Tell Git that canonical representation of files in the
               repository has changed over time (e.g. earlier commits record
               text files with _CRLF_ line endings, but recent ones use _LF_ line
               endings). In such a repository, for each file where a
               three-way content merge is needed, Git can convert the data
               recorded in commits to a canonical form before performing a
               merge to reduce unnecessary conflicts. For more information,
               see section "Merging branches with differing checkin/checkout
               attributes" in gitattributes(5).
    
           **merge.stat**
               What, if anything, to print between **ORIG_HEAD** and the merge
               result at the end of the merge. Possible values are:
    
               **false**
                   Show nothing.
    
               **true**
                   Show **git diff --diffstat --summary ORIG_HEAD**.
    
               **compact**
                   Show **git diff --compact-summary ORIG_HEAD**.
    
               but any unrecognised value (e.g., a value added by a future
               version of Git) is taken as **true** instead of triggering an
               error. Defaults to **true**.
    
           **merge.autoStash**
               When set to **true** , automatically create a temporary stash entry
               before the operation begins, and apply it after the operation
               ends. This means that you can run merge on a dirty worktree.
               However, use with care: the final stash application after a
               successful merge might result in non-trivial conflicts. This
               option can be overridden by the **--no-autostash** and **--autostash**
               options of git-merge(1). Defaults to **false**.
    
           **merge.tool**
               Controls which merge tool is used by git-mergetool(1). The
               list below shows the valid built-in values. Any other value is
               treated as a custom merge tool and requires that a
               corresponding **mergetool.**_< tool>_**.cmd** variable is defined.
    
           **merge.guitool**
               Controls which merge tool is used by git-mergetool(1) when the
               **-g** /**--gui** flag is specified. The list below shows the valid
               built-in values. Any other value is treated as a custom merge
               tool and requires that a corresponding **mergetool.**_< guitool>_**.cmd**
               variable is defined.
    
               **araxis**
                   Use Araxis Merge (requires a graphical session)
    
               **bc**
                   Use Beyond Compare (requires a graphical session)
    
               **bc3**
                   Use Beyond Compare (requires a graphical session)
    
               **bc4**
                   Use Beyond Compare (requires a graphical session)
    
               **codecompare**
                   Use Code Compare (requires a graphical session)
    
               **deltawalker**
                   Use DeltaWalker (requires a graphical session)
    
               **diffmerge**
                   Use DiffMerge (requires a graphical session)
    
               **diffuse**
                   Use Diffuse (requires a graphical session)
    
               **ecmerge**
                   Use ECMerge (requires a graphical session)
    
               **emerge**
                   Use Emacs' Emerge
    
               **examdiff**
                   Use ExamDiff Pro (requires a graphical session)
    
               **guiffy**
                   Use Guiffy’s Diff Tool (requires a graphical session)
    
               **gvimdiff**
                   Use gVim (requires a graphical session) with a custom
                   layout (see **git help mergetool** 's **BACKEND SPECIFIC HINTS**
                   section)
    
               **gvimdiff1**
                   Use gVim (requires a graphical session) with a 2 panes
                   layout (LOCAL and REMOTE)
    
               **gvimdiff2**
                   Use gVim (requires a graphical session) with a 3 panes
                   layout (LOCAL, MERGED and REMOTE)
    
               **gvimdiff3**
                   Use gVim (requires a graphical session) where only the
                   MERGED file is shown
    
               **kdiff3**
                   Use KDiff3 (requires a graphical session)
    
               **meld**
                   Use Meld (requires a graphical session) with optional **auto**
                   **merge**(see **git help mergetool** 's **CONFIGURATION** section)
    
               **nvimdiff**
                   Use Neovim with a custom layout (see **git help mergetool** 's
                   **BACKEND SPECIFIC HINTS** section)
    
               **nvimdiff1**
                   Use Neovim with a 2 panes layout (LOCAL and REMOTE)
    
               **nvimdiff2**
                   Use Neovim with a 3 panes layout (LOCAL, MERGED and
                   REMOTE)
    
               **nvimdiff3**
                   Use Neovim where only the MERGED file is shown
    
               **opendiff**
                   Use FileMerge (requires a graphical session)
    
               **p4merge**
                   Use HelixCore P4Merge (requires a graphical session)
    
               **smerge**
                   Use Sublime Merge (requires a graphical session)
    
               **tkdiff**
                   Use TkDiff (requires a graphical session)
    
               **tortoisemerge**
                   Use TortoiseMerge (requires a graphical session)
    
               **vimdiff**
                   Use Vim with a custom layout (see **git help mergetool** 's
                   **BACKEND SPECIFIC HINTS** section)
    
               **vimdiff1**
                   Use Vim with a 2 panes layout (LOCAL and REMOTE)
    
               **vimdiff2**
                   Use Vim with a 3 panes layout (LOCAL, MERGED and REMOTE)
    
               **vimdiff3**
                   Use Vim where only the MERGED file is shown
    
               **vscode**
                   Use Visual Studio Code (requires a graphical session)
    
               **winmerge**
                   Use WinMerge (requires a graphical session)
    
               **xxdiff**
                   Use xxdiff (requires a graphical session)
    
           **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
               overridden by the **GIT_MERGE_VERBOSITY** environment variable.
    
           **merge.**_< driver>_**.name**
               Defines a human-readable name for a custom low-level merge
               driver. See gitattributes(5) for details.
    
           **merge.**_< driver>_**.driver**
               Defines the command that implements a custom low-level merge
               driver. See gitattributes(5) for details.
    
           **merge.**_< driver>_**.recursive**
               Names a low-level merge driver to be used when performing an
               internal merge between common ancestors. See gitattributes(5)
               for details.
    


## GIT



           Part of the git(1) suite
    


* * *