Re: Opinions on changing add/add conflict resolution?

From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Date: Mar 12, 2018, 18:47 UTC
Message-ID: <20180312184734.GA58506@aiede.svl.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <CABPp-BEXcvgxcn4-OrDhjUpuOsGCJwE_XT+0eYOK4Ad_O5maOg@mail.gmail.com>

Hi,

Elijah Newren wrote:

Show 14 quoted lines

> Hi everyone,
>
> I'd like to change add/add conflict resolution.  Currently when such a
> conflict occurs (say at ${path}), git unconditionally does a two-way
> merge of the two files and sticks the result in the working tree at
> ${path}.
>
> I would like to make it instead first check whether the two files are
> similar; if they are, then do the two-way merge, but if they're not,
> then instead write the two files out to separate paths (${path}~HEAD
> and ${path}~$MERGE, while making sure that ${path} is removed from the
> working copy).
>
> Thoughts?

My immediate reaction is that it seems inconsistent with the rest of merge behavior. Why would add/add behave this way but edit/edit not behave this way?

Would this behavior be configurable or unconditional? I suspect I would want it turned off in my own use.

On the other hand, in the case of wild difference between the two files, skipping the two-way merge and just writing one of the versions to the worktree (like we do for binary files) sounds like something I would like in my own use.

Can you add something more about the motivation to the commit message? E.g. is this about performance, interaction with some tools, to support some particular workflow, etc?

Thanks and hope that helps, Jonathan

Show 8 quoted lines

> I have a patch series[1] with more details and other changes, but
> wanted to especially get feedback on this issue even from folks that
> didn't have enough time to read the patches or even the cover letter.
>
> Thanks,
> Elijah
>
> [1] https://public-inbox.org/git/20180305171125.22331-1-newren@gmail.com/