Re: Merge into locally modified files?

> If I have some local changes to a file that I don't want to commit
> (e.g. temp debug changes like printf's) and I see somebody else has
> pushed some changes to that file, how do I merge their changes to the
> file while trying to preserve my local changes (and conflicting if
> it's not possible)?
> 
> After a git fetch, I tried 'git checkout --merge origin/master <path
> to my locally modified file>', but that just overwrote my local
> changes.
> 
> I'm converting people from CVS to git and this is a common thing
> people do with CVS. They have some local changes and see that the
> server has some other changes so they do 'cvs up' and it tries to
> merge changes from the server into the locally modified file. The
> local changes are often things that will never be committed. I know
> git tries to avoid things you can't undo, but like a 'git checkout
> <file>' that can't be undone, is there a way to say "merge what you
> can and generate conflict markers for things you can't?".
> 
> I think what I want to do is the equivalent of rebasing for local
> modified files rather than committed files.