git/Documentation/git-merge-index.txt

git-merge-index(1)
==================

NAME
----
git-merge-index - Run a merge for files needing merging


SYNOPSIS
--------
'git merge-index' [-o] [-q] <merge-program> (-a | [--] <file>\*)

DESCRIPTION
-----------
This looks up the <file>(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 <file> 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 <file>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 <torvalds@osdl.org>
One-shot merge by Petr Baudis <pasky@ucw.cz>

Documentation
--------------
Documentation by David Greaves, Junio C Hamano and the git-list <git@vger.kernel.org>.

GIT
---
Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite