Re: [PATCH 7/7] xdiff: make diff3 the default conflictStyle

> Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com> writes:
> 
> > Johannes Sixt wrote:
> >> then diff3 must display the conflict as
> >> 
> >>  12<ABC|34=AXC>56
> >> 
> >> to be technically correct. RCS style can coalesce A and C outside of the
> >> conflict and display it as
> >> 
> >>  12A<B=X>C34
> >> 
> >> and *that* is the helpful part of this simpler style.
> >
> > I have trouble translating the above to what I'm familiar with in my
> > mind, so...
> >
> > diff2:
> >
> >   1
> >   2
> >   A
> >   <<<<<<< l
> >   B
> >   =======
> >   X
> >   >>>>>>> r
> >   C
> >   5
> >   6
> >
> > diff3:
> >
> >   1
> >   2
> >   <<<<<<< l
> >   A
> >   B
> >   C
> >   ||||||| b
> >   3
> >   4
> >   =======
> >   A
> >   X
> >   C
> >   >>>>>>> r
> >   5
> >   6
> >
> > I personally don't mind at all having a few extra lines in order to
> > visualize what actually happened.
> 
> Plus a good tool should have an option to quickly show a diff between any
> 2 of 3 parts, making analysis even simpler.

> > But of course there's zdiff3:
> >
> >   1
> >   2
> >   A
> >   <<<<<<< l
> >   B
> >   ||||||| b
> >   3
> >   4
> >   =======
> >   X
> >   >>>>>>> r
> >   C
> >   5
> >   6
> >
> > Which is the best of both worlds, even if not technically accurate.
> 
> Yeah, now I see, thank you both for explanations!
> 
> That said, to me it seems that for any of 3 formats one can find a case
> where it's better than the other 2. I'm sure I got a few occasions where
> leaving common part(s) out of conflicts resulted in a confusion and
> mis-merge.