[PATCH] Documentation: merge: use MERGE_HEAD to refer to the remote branch

From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Date: Jan 23, 2010, 22:48 UTC
Message-ID: <20100123224840.GA2136@progeny.tock>
In-Reply-To: <201001101324.47025.trast@student.ethz.ch>

commit 57bddb11 (Documentation/git-merge: reword references to "remote" and "pull", 2010-01-07) fixed the manual to drop the assumption that the other branch being merged is from a remote repository. Unfortunately, in a few places, to do so it introduced the antecedentless phrase "their versions". Worse, in passages like the following, 'they' is playing two roles.

|   highlighting changes from both the HEAD and their versions.
|
| * Look at the diffs on their own. 'git log --merge -p <path>'

Using HEAD and MERGE_HEAD nicely assigns terminology to "our" and "their" sides. It also provides the reader with practice using names that git will recognize on the command line.

Signed-off-by: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
---
Thomas Rast wrote:

> Jonathan Nieder wrote:

Show 9 quoted lines

>> Maybe:
>> 
>> |   * Look at the diffs.  'git diff' will show a three-way diff,
>> |     highlighting changes from both the HEAD and MERGE_HEAD
>> |     versions.
>
> I like this idea, as it nicely assigns terminology to the "their"
> side.  We need to explain MERGE_HEAD (it's not in the manpage yet),
> but that should fit in somewhere.

Here is a try. This applies on top of the series to clarify 'git merge' documentation [1] I sent earlier today, which conveniently enough explains MERGE_HEAD a few sections earlier.

Thanks for the encouragement, Jonathan

[1] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/137818

 Documentation/git-merge.txt |   14 ++++++++------
 1 files changed, 8 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/git-merge.txt b/Documentation/git-merge.txt
index 7aa3f3f..4b1b2f5 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-merge.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-merge.txt
@@ -215,15 +215,17 @@ You can work through the conflict with a number of tools:
    mergetool which will work you through the merge.
 
  * Look at the diffs.  `git diff` will show a three-way diff,
-   highlighting changes from both the HEAD and their versions.
+   highlighting changes from both the `HEAD` and `MERGE_HEAD`
+   versions.
 
- * Look at the diffs on their own. `git log --merge -p <path>`
-   will show diffs first for the HEAD version and then
-   their version.
+ * 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 their version.
+   common ancestor, `git show :2:filename` shows the `HEAD`
+   version, and `git show :3:filename` shows the `MERGE_HEAD`
+   version.
 
 
 EXAMPLES

-- 
1.6.6